Move house, rent house, go private, hope?

[Impendingdoom]

Hi all

Long time lurker here, with (long) primary school admissions questions...

Based on the last few years' distances, we wouldn't get in to any of our nearest primary schools. On last year's, we just get into one OK one, but only just, so this might change. The next options would be further away undersubscribed schools with very poor Ofsted comments. So it seems the options are:

1. Wait and see. Can anyone tell me whether the LA published distances are the furthest distance on the day places are allocated, or the final distance on the day school starts? If they are the former, would the LA/school tell me the latter? Then I could see how likely we really are to get into any of them.

One other thing about waiting and seeing is that we could go on waiting lists for the nearer ones - some people say the first couple of years of school are crucial, others that it'd be fine and not to worry about it - any opinions?

1. Move house. To somewhere very near a good school i.e much more expensive and smaller than where we are. Aaargh. I'm worried about doing this and then the school turning out not to be right (happened to some friends) and ending up moving again/going private anyway
2. Rent near a school, and live there for a few years. I've read previous posts on this and know the arguments on ethics and whether it's even possible. But I also know of people who have done it.
3. Go private. Probably can't afford this for more than one child, and we plan on having another.
4. Go mad. Start campaign to make nearer schools take another class. Moan at everyone for the next couple of years. Complain to MP about postcode lottery. Pray (to god of nearest good religious school). Obsessively check mumsnet for changes in admissions policy.......

Any help very gratefully accepted!

My answer:-
Hope: NO!!! Its a desolate feeling when it doesn't work out and you have no plan B.
Go private: start looking now. You will find this a surprisingly competitive option.
Move House: Only if you want it leave the area or move house anyway
Rent: yes, but live in it and rent your own place out.

Re the church thing. Only 1 parent has to go normally. Might give you another option if it looks like nothing else is possible. School places is a very sad state of affairs.

Unfortunately I don't think the church schools are much better.... I will have a look!

We faced the same issues, although we're not in London. We did consider moving, but some friends did this and didn't get into the catchment school they wanted anyway. That situation would have been unheard of 10 years ago, but the pressure on state school places are so high now that it's a fairly regular occurrence.

In the end, we decided the only sure fire way of getting a school we wanted was to go private. They also had very good before and after school care too, where many of the state options didn't. If you do decide to go the private route, make sure you do your sums carefully and factor in all the extra costs, as well as the increase of fees further up the school and inflation. Also, as var12 says, you need to start looking at the schools now. The pressure on places is steadily increasing, even outside London.

An update…

Two of the options are out: We’re not prepared to rent temporarily, and whilst we could afford private primary for one child at a stretch, we couldn’t afford it for two (and it’s cheaper to move house).

The option of staying put and hoping is slightly better than it was when I first posted, in that children in our street this year did get into one of their six choices. However, I’m still not sure about the schools that we might get into. I went to see quite a few schools locally and the ones we might get into are not as good as the others. There are some good things about them, but they have worse results and facilities and very few high achieving children (clearly we’re expecting our PFB to be a genius…). There is still a chance of getting into one of the better ones on a waiting list, as we’re really close to the cut off, but this would be small, and impossible to predict.

The only other option is moving house. So we’ve started looking at other schools and other areas of London, and need to work out how much we might be able to borrow, and how far into the ‘catchment’ we’d need to be to be sure. It’s made me quite sad, thinking about leaving our house and maybe area, and probably not finding one we can afford that is as nice. And also wincing at the stamp duty etc. We’re looking near really good schools ( if we’re going to move we might as well try to move next to a really good one) but it’s so hard to know before you go and see them. Has anyone got any advice on how to go about this? I’m feeling overwhelmed. I also have a sinking feeling that the distances might change and we might move house only to find that we would have been fine anyway, and have wasted a huge amount of money. Overall, though we’ve started looking, I feel like we shouldn’t do anything until after September when a) we can go and visit the new schools and b) I should be able to get September (rather than April) distances from the council

As ever, any advice gratefully accepted (I'll probably be back asking about specific schools too). I feel like I've done all this wrong and shouldn't have even bought our house in the first place. And maybe should even be leaving London like some of you have so that we could spend less on a mortgage anyway, maybe even afford a private school and have less of this school craziness...

Hello if you pm I might know a bit about your local schools as I'm in the area. There's a huge amount of churn in the borough and the vast majority of schools are pretty good.

We moved within London from Islington last year - schools were a big part of the search. Two websites are useful: locrating.com - maps schools in an area and their Ofsted - and findaschool.info, which shows you the distances for every years' entry for last few years. (I think on April figures.)
Between them you can identify potential schools and then work out where you need to live in order to definitely get in. (As definite as you can be anyway.)
PM me if you'd like more detail - I was OBSESSED! (Which, with a then 18 month old, felt a bit ridiculous. But now it's done, and I'm pretty sure she'll get a place at the school we moved near, I do think it was worth putting the effort in.)

It's so hard isn't it. Do you think you would consider leaving London altogether?

I don't think we will leave London- too much commuting time, far from our friends and we like it here! Though we may move further out- which may feel like leaving! Thanks celia and thankgod, I'll pm you

Impending I just want to say good luck and I feel your pain! Am also in London, but South we chose the hope option (we were less than 200m from closest) and were bitterly disappointed, not least as the council adjusted the distances so we were a further 30m out. We are now moving out of London. However, one thing I wanted to pass on is that if you are moving house to get into a school please please please see if you can get their estimated sibling intake. I have a friend who moved right next to her preferred school, didn't get in and then we heard that the demand was such that there were siblings that didn't get in. Good luck. London schools really are a ridiculous situation.

Private school. Get second jobs. Pay fees. Worked for us - good schools like North London Collegiate.

What is the birth rate like for his year?

There are so many variables with schools, siblings can be a real problem.

We are not in London but live in an area that has village primary schools, it's very competitive for places. I was a bit obsessed...visited school and asked about siblings ( siblings were taking 60% of places) worked out how many were closer, we scraped in and our school wasn't the most desirable of the local village schools either.

The next nearest school was outstanding and people moved to get in, lots of appeals etc. within two years the head left and most of the teachers. The school is not what it was. Our school got a new head and he's amazing, were now outstanding and the appeals to get in have started. ( mostly from the other outstanding school)

I think it's all a bit crazy and you do get obsessed with it. If I was you I'd go for your nearest school that you like and accept that if its not great you can pay for tutors. ( much cheaper than private) it can all change so quickly and I'm not sure that you can anymore.