How long would you travel for an outstanding primary school?

[Quijanotango]

Thinking about where to send my little one...primaries next to our home are very satisfactory. We have visited them and they are not an option. They are also oversubscribed since population in our borough is increasing by the hour.
We are catholic but the nearest catholic school is well out of our catchment area.Not an option either.
There is an outstanding catholic school close to my work where we could get a place based on the last 10 years stats. We attend church and this would put us in a stronger position than people living closer but no catholic. there is no sibling policy either. The problem is that it is a 45 min drive from home. Little one would have to travel with us leaving home around 7.45am and I'm feeling guilty already...Dropping off and picking up would not be a problem.
Moving is not an option. We love our house and we are in the catchment area from a very good secondary school.
Private not an option.
By the way, my husband and I are both in education and fully understand ofsted reports and school results.
What would you do? I'm losing sleep over this...Any opinions would be highly appreciated.

Also, are you absolutely sure that you won't want to change jobs at any point during the next six years? I'm a teacher, loved my job and I had no plans to leave my school, but changes in the SLT mean it's become a very different place to work and I'm weighing up my options. If this happened to you, you could be very limited as you'd still need to get dd to her school.

I can't see what all the fuss is about. My DS (7) goes to a school which is about 30 - 40 mins drive away and the distance hasn't caused any problems at all. He gets up, gets dressed and has breakfast in about 20 minutes so doesn't need to get up at the crack of dawn to to that and the spends the next half an hour chatting as we get to school so hardly a stressful / tiring start to the day. Same thing on the way home, by the time he has finished telling me everything he wants from the day we're back home so again no stress for him.
Why would children who live on our street not want to be friends with him because he goes to a different school? The last thing kids talk about when they are together is what happened at school or discuss their teachers, they just get on with playing, far more interested in who has the latest Playstation game than where you go to school. He has many friends in the area and probably couldn't tell you where any of them go to school as kids really don't care.

But he can't have school friends home for tea. He can't go spontaneously to a friends's house.. What happens if he is in a performance which starts at 7.00? He wiill never be able to get himself to school. What if the driver is ill, or the car breaks down? What happens if he's got a music exam and he leaves his violin at home- or a match and he forgets his boots? They don't stay 7 for long!

Also he is only 7yrs- it gets more difficult in the next few years.

That is true for any child who lives in a very rural location - and for most children at independent schools as well.

In both examples the DCs at the school will be in similar situations.

It isn't the same as being the only odd DC. Most DCs in the state system will not travel that far.

It depends why you thought the school was "outstanding". If it was just on the basis of an Ofsted report I strongly would not credit it.

And even if was on basis of other factors, real factors that truly matter and I can see for myself, I could not face driving 2.5 hours/day on school run for 7 years.

I guess maybe being in London makes me see things differently and long commutes seem to be part of our everyday life when they really shouldn't?

That is a London thing. I live in a rural idyll county. People move here and PLAN to commute 2 hours each way to work (possibly all the way back to London). They think this is normal. Of course, I think they're insane, why move to rural idyll county if you will still be living the worst of London lifestyle?

Agree totally with seeker et al. From around seven onwards, they start having their own friends (and having their own opinion on your friends' kids - who in turn are quite involved in their own worlds!) They can accept an impromptu invite (including one that precludes paid-for childcare) and whizz round to see their mates at the weekend. They're part of an overall community. (Come to that, so am I. It's rather fab.)

And I'm finding in fact that a close-by secondary (I live in SE London too, btw) is incredibly useful too - DD1 can stay late for a rehearsal if she needs to and so on.

Oh, and I was driven to school. I very rarely saw my schoolmates outside class and when I did it was a 'special occasion'. It was vile. I was very lonely and isolated.

"That is true for any child who lives in a very rural location - and for most children at independent schools as well."

Yes. And it's a bad idea then, too.

I commuted as a child and I would try very hard to ensure my children did not have to.

I think it's a real shame, they will be dislocated from the community they live in.

I think you have an unrealistic idea of many children's friendships from quite a young age. They want to go to the parties and play with their friends. It's not a question so much as the suitability of the friends they pick, for the most part they'll be nice. It's more that they will want to see these children so much more than the children of your friends. You in turn should encourage them to build relationships with their class it's part of learning and enjoying school. You only have to read these boards to see the heartbreak struggling to make friends can cause.

Things such as the car breaking down or forgetting football boots will happen very occasionally I agree but so hardly often enough to make it worth being a factor in choosing a school. So what if a school performance starts at 7pm, I will drive him there, hardly takes much more time than if I had to walk 10/15 minutes to get to school. I don't consider the 2 hours driving a day to get my DS to the best school for him to be a waste of my time, it is part of my 'job' as his mum to try to do the best things for him. I could use those 2 hours to get my nails done or go to the gym but I think I would consider that a waste of my time.
We are still part of the community, tonight we arrived home at the same time as our neighbors who go to another school and all the kids went straight outside to play football while I chatted to their mum. We go to many local events and have many local friends.
He can go on a playdate after school whenever he wants, I just pick him up from their house instead of school, again not a big deal.
You can look for the negatives in any situation but if you really feel it is the best school for your children then that outweighs any minor concerns in my opinion.

They went straight out to play football? You're lucky- it was dark by 4.15 where I live!

I have not read all your thread but we travel 25 min to our faith school, one of the kids in DD class travels nearly an hour to come to our school (she lives in Nmcr, school is SMcr).

Children r v adaptable, just have a packed breakfast and tea along the way.

They will play in the snow, rain, freezing cold, they don't let a little thing like the fact it was pitch black ten minutes after they started get in their way!!

The thing that always strikes me when these travelling to school threads come up is that people who had long journeys to school themselves as a child always say they hated it and would never inflict it on their own children.

I had a long journey to school (45 minutes on the school bus) and no local friends once we got past about age 8. I hated it. My DC go to our local schools. If I was very unhappy with their local school we would move even if this meant financial cost and/or a less nice house and/or lots of disruption. 1.5 hours a day travelling is a lot - even for an adult. Lots of the "benefits" of the "better" school will be lost while your child is sat in traffic on the way home.

OP, I think you've decided on the faith school and came on here to be told a good school was worth the commute. Unfortunately for you, most are disagreeing with this. But if you absolutely won't countenance the local school then I don't see what other option you have.

I think that it quite possibly works at 7yrs old-it is much more difficult for the child and friendships when they get past 8yrs.

My DC went to the local outstanding schools until yr 5. Then we got them into another outstanding middle school about 12 miles away. We changed their school because the local one is CofE and also the upper secondary that their middle school feeds into is the second best state school in our county.
They go by school bus each day which takes about 40 minutes there and 40 minutes back.
They have friends where we live that they play with and they also talk on the phone or text their friends from the middle school.
Because the middle school has a catchment that is quite rural thn all their school friends are scattered round the local villages so my DC aren't missing much socialising.
Yet again because 80% of the pupils one to school by bus, most clubs and activities take place at lunchtimes.

Redsky you're right, it's very telling that all those who had long journeys to school (I'm one of them) feel (mildly) scarred by it and it is something they want to avoid for their children. I actually think that says a lot more than a parent blithely saying, 'oh it's fine, my children love the two hours they spend in the car each day'. Perhaps in twenty years time, said children will be writing what I've written.
OP having asked the question, how do you feel about the answers? It's not unanimous, but it's pretty close...

It's also telling that as far as I can see, all the people not seeing a problem have children 7 or under. And many of us saying it's not a good idea have older ones.

Sorry, my two pence worth... We moved into the area we live in now in SE London 18 months ago because of there are numerous good/outstanding primary schools in the area. We drew the bad straw and ended up in none. The one we were sent too was 3 miles away, I went to look at it and no way, didn't like it and wouldn't want it for DS1. We ended up sending him a small local private prep school also 3 miles away (doesn't sound far) but it involved a rather trying and stressful journey across some roads that most of London seem to be on at that time of the morning. So even though theoretically, it should not take more than 10-15 mins for the drive, I often have to leave at least 30 mins before as you just could not predict the traffic (busy most days!). I did this for 4 weeks and then a place came up in the local CofE primary and we agonised over it as we had already rationalised our decision to put DS1 in the prep school.

In the end, the 'local' factor won. I just could not bear the thought of doing that drive 10x a week for the next 10 years. The kids would argue in the car and I would be screaming at them to stop while in crazy London rush hour traffic. It was really hard to make the decision at that time as DS1 was thriving in the school. But guess what, he is now thriving in the local school, which is a 5 minute walk away (and that is SO bloody nice after that stressful drive!). He has made lots of local friends who are just minutes away from us, we already had quite a few play dates and yesterday, me and another mum took the kids to the local market for the Christmas light switch on after school... The first birthday party he went to for a classmate from the local school was at a hall a 30-second walk from us. We often see his classmates at the local park after school. And he loves his current school. On hindsight, of course we think now why we were even hesitating when we had to make that decision? Hope that helps, or not! :) Good luck, we are all trying to do our best for our children.

Thats three hours a day commuting in total then? Based on 45 mins journey there. 15 hours commuting a week for your very little one, 7 and a half hours traveling for your school aged child. What a complete nightmare, don't do it.

You would do better to rent your house out and rent one close to the catholic school to save hours and hours of traveling.

Is commuting so long really fair on the kids? They could be running around in the park after school with school friends or having playdates close to the school. Or they could be relaxing at home or homework.

I traveled for 50 mins each way as a child and I hated it.

You can also be in the position of making a younger DC do the journey when they are just there for the ride! In the short time I had the long journey I had to bundle the baby in the car for 2 hours a day! Not bad as he slept but imagine having a 3 yr old in for all that time. What happens when the eldest goes onto the next school and you are out for all that time?
Maybe these people only have one DC. I have also known people get their eldest into a school outside their catchment area and then they can't get a place for the next child. It would have to be an exceptional school to make it worthwhile.

Thank you very much for all your opinions and advice. You've really made me think, which was the whole point of asking.
It's interesting how many of the problems that people point at don't really exist for us such as cost of petrol ( we drive that way anyway to go to work ) doubling the journey time to go back home ( we don't, we would stay at work) and other minor details. But after listening to all your opinions, DD being tired and not having local friends worries me, although at the same time, we have quite a busy life and no much time for play 'sporadic' play dates I'm afraid. If my DD attends the school next to work, we'll have a long trip together in the car. If she goes to the local one, she'll spend that time with a childminder. This is the joy or full time working parents in London. Our life seems to be quite similar to pyrrah's , maybe we're also weird...we still have over a year to decide and travelling to nursery (which is close to work too) will give us an idea of how manageable the commute is for the little one.
But thanks again for all your opinions. Very helpful.