Picking a primary school / academic vs social aspects

[mia1972]

Dear Mumsnetters,

This might be a difficult question to answer but I am interested in hearing about your experiences, if you could spare a few moments.

We have moved outside London about a year ago and have rented a couple of houses so far as... we haven't yet made the final move of selling our home London. We will do that but we are not quite ready for a number of reasons which I won't go into now.

The place where we are living now is lovely and has a fantastic primary school, probably the best in the area so I should be happy (providing we can get in) right ? The trouble is that in the last year we have made new friends, my son is getting quite attached to the children and I like the parents. But they all live in a different catchment area, it's only 10 minutes on the car but enough for all these kids to end up in a school and my son in another one.

MY question is does it matter? It's has been such hard work meeting all these lovely new people and now they are going to go to a different school and we will have to start all over again? How does it work when your kids go to school? Does social life rotate entirely around the school life and we will end up not seeing these people any longer? Am I worrying too much?

Thanks in advance, Mia

We found that the friendships were strongest when DD made them herself at school and picked a set of friends with fantastic mums. We do see friends from preschool occasionally but they aren't as strong and only persist because I like the mums.

DCs have play dates with school friends and about once a term I have drinks or lunch with other school parents from DS's class and sometimes chat at the school gate but otherwise our social life is more with friends we knew before school. If DCs go to a school where they don't know people they get a chance to make wider circle of friends. As they get older they will choose the friends they want who often won't be the ones you would pick - either because of the children or the parents. Hopefully they will stay friends with your friends' DCs but you can't necessarily engineer it that way. So I would say pick it based on what you think of the school not who goes there.

Friends move away. Children make other friends. You could always rent in the area where your friends are. Would this help? Your child will make friends in any school but I would choose the best school for my child. Friendships change but adults can stay friends if they make a bit of effort. You might make new friends with the Mums in your village but if you want to stay close to the others you can move. I sympathise with the problem of making friends. My few friends at the school gate came about because we realised no-one spoke to us. We started to speak to each other. Everyone else turned up with firm friends and excluded us "Billy no mates" mums.

DD went to an Infant school miles away from her nursery as we moved during the last nursery year but didn't change her setting.

3 1/2 years later she still sees her nursery friends on a regular basis, has sleepovers and we arrange playdates. They even formed a riding group together.

Yes, we as parents like each other and obviously this plays a big part as well.

DD soon formed friendships in school. While I am friendly with some I don't cultivate a big friendship as DD manages fine without me. And I don't "need" to make mum friends. It is good to know some well as it helps with emergencies.

I found it incredibly hard to keep in touch with children at other schools once the DC started there. However 1 of DD's friends still regularly (as in once a week regularly) sees a mixed group of friends and their children that have known each other for 9 years (or their whole lives in terms of the younger children) and all go to different schools. This does require them all to have a common day that none of the mums work though - which think is the main sticking point - finding time to do meet up!

As others have said, the DC will make new friends.

I think that DD2 might have made more friends at school if I had naturally clicked with more of the parents; I have always struggled to find stuff in common to chat about.
Sometimes I think she would have been better off at one of the other schools where I might have managed to make parent friends more easily.

thanks for all your responses, I guess that my worry is that the parents in the village won't be as friendly or down to earth as the ones we have just met but I do agree that is best for him to be in a better school - that is of course if he gets in. The school in the town is quite oversubscribed and much bigger so I don't think we would get in even if we put that down as a first choice. And moving back to Henley is a possibility but not an immediate one unfortunately. I guess I am going to have to hope that we will meet nice people, we already 'lost' our London friends including our NCT friends as we moved nearly 2 hours away from them. I find this whole business of making friends in a new place utterly exhausting. I understand that people don't 'need' to make new friends but it can be quite isolating when you move and you leave behind your support network.

The few "friends" I did make all evaporated at secondary stage as our children went to different schools! I didn't click with many either. I also felt old - I was, in comparison to everyone else! I am envious of people who make friends easily. My NCT group split into two groups. Those that were invited to people's houses, coffee meet ups and picnics, and those who were not. I drove past a village pub one day and saw the self selecting group in the garden with their babies. You then know it is time to move on and not expect to be included. I have always found it a struggle and I have been in my house for more than 25 years! I can't even blame moving around!