moving..what would you do about school?

[londonmum1234]

We are renting in a very expensive area and want to buy a house, and we found one we can afford in a wonderful area about 11 miles/30 min drive away. My daughter is in the middle of year 1. The school near the new house (0.7 miles away) is great, but is oversubscribed and has a one form entry. She would have to go on the waiting list and in the meantime I would keep her at her current school and just deal with the long drive.

Is this a bad idea? Would you move, knowing that it might be a long wait until she gets a place at the new school, as there is not a lot of movement at this particular school and we would be waiting for a child to leave? There are no other schools around the new area that I would like to send her to. Is 30 min drive too long to do for any length of time? It could be months or years before she got in! But it seems this would probably be the situation wherever we move...

Also, if my other child who is now only 1 year old gets a reception place when he is four, would my older daughter, then age 9, get a sibling
place? Or are sibling places only for younger siblings?

Not sure what to do...maybe it is not worth moving, but the new house is in an area we love and we would be able to get on the property latter.

Thanks for advice!

Really? That is reassuring. Yes there is breakfast and after school club which would help. Thanks for your response.

Check the school's admission arrangements. Sometimes only children with an older sibling on roll get priority and there's a small possibility that siblings don't get priority at all.

You've nothing to lose by going on the waiting list though.

I would do it.

Slightly different situation but...

Our dc are in Years 2 and R. Their primary school is wonderful but the secondary it feeds into is dire. Really awful and I don't want them going there.

We will be looking to move in a couple of years, probably about the time ds1 is going into year 5. We know the area we want (based on a wonderful secondary school) which is 11 miles away (same distance you mentioned). It takes about 35 minutes to drive from where we are now.

I'm very reluctant to move ds primary schools in year 5...it seems a little late in the day. So we're planning on keeping him in the same primary after we've moved for years 5 and 6, then he will go to the local secondary.

When ds1 leaves primary, ds2 will be going into year 5...so we'll be in the same position, and probably keep ds2 in that primary too.

So we'll probably have 4 years of commuting 30 minutes for the school run.

We will be doing this.

Moving out of London, new local primary very oversubscribed, not a great reputation and certainly not a patch on the current school.

Given that DH works in London, if I go back to working for someone else then that will be in London and the work I do for myself requires regular trips here, it just makes more sense for her to commute with us.

It also means she doesn't have to leave all her friends. The school she's at is very diverse, whereas the local one is 99% white British and being in London, they have access to all the museums and so on, both of which I think are major pluses in terms of her education.

The commute will be a 45 minute train journey with a 7 minute walk to and from the station at both ends. We can chat on the train, do her reading and homework etc. so there are pluses. Currently we have a 40 minute bus journey so there's not a huge amount of time difference and buses are much less reliable and can be packed so all in all, it's not going to be a shock to the system.

We'll have to make more of an effort to see friends at weekends and holidays, but she will have after-school club at either school, so after-school play-dates are never going to be on the cards.

She's only in Y1, so we have a lot of years ahead - but no sibling issues as she's an only.

I'd probably be a bit more reticent if I was having to drive as that would be more tiring and not have the advantages of being able to do reading. It's also hard on you if you are doing the commute 4 times a day rather than twice.

Would you look for a YR place at the current school for your second DC, or at the one close to your house? If the former, would they qualify for a sibling place at that distance?

We did a similar journey for 2 years, we did get used to it BUT I did have to pretty much cancel all after school activities as on some days the school run would end up taking 3 hours. (3 kids all in primary and all had separate activities on different nights). We're now back where we started and literally 2 mins from DS3's classroom, it's bloody heaven!

Thanks so much very helpful, good to know people do this and it can be ok. Will do some practice runs at school run times to make sure the commute isnt twice as long and find out sibling policy before making a final decision. Obviously id like both kids to end up at the same school!
Has anyone ever been on a schools waiting list for years without ever getting a place?

Once she is in year 30, it might be worth you appealing, as they can have more than 30 in a class. So you are much more likely to win then.

I would move. Apply for the school you like, keep her at current school, but also visit and look carefully at an alternative local schools - are some of them surprisingly better than you expected? Also try to get her involved in local Rainbows etc. so she gets to know local children.

If you need help with appeals once she is going into year 3, then come back and ask for it there are some very helpful MNers who can help.