Choosing a primary school - near to home or near to work?

[Shelduck]

We're choosing a primary school for DS at the moment. Very very torn and lots of different factors to consider, but one choice we might have to make is between a school that is near home and a school that is near to where DH and I work. (It's about a 30 minute commute.)

All things being equal - and quite aside from the issue about how likely we are to get into the school that is further away from where we live - could any of you give me the benefit of your experience either way?

Advantages and disadvantages I can think of so far:

Near to home:

• DS will live near his school friends
• but I'll almost certainly have to reduce my working hours in order to be able to drop-off and pick-up EVEN making use of full breakfast club and after-school club hours

Near to work

• Wouldn't have to reduce my working hours
• We'd be near to DS if he was ill and needed picking up
• Wouldn't live near any of school friends (although would at least know loads of children from his pre-school to start with)

...And the real bugger is that the school my heart really likes is in between home and work! Bah!

Are you planning on staying at that exact same workplace for the next 7 years minimum, and more if you have more children?

Are you certain that you have a chance of a place at a school near your work? Where I live (Herts), we had no chance of a place at an outstanding school 15mins walk away from home, due to pressure on school places.

I would choose home. No doubt.

Thanks all. As an update, just got figures for 2015, and if we had applied last year, we would have been offered a place fairly comfortably, so worth a punt this year too - relatively stable birth figures. As I said, I'm really just interested in working out whether I'd even want DS to go to a school not near our home anyway - putting aside questions about whether we'd get in.

Yes, in our area siblings always get priority over non-siblings. Our jobs are very stable and where we work is one of the major employers in the area, so if we got made redundant and couldn't get another job there, we'd probably have to move house anyway.

At the moment, DH and I travel together already, so we share out drop-offs and pick-ups. But if we split the school run - or if only one of us dropped hourse - we'd actually need to buy a second car.

I appreciate you're all trying to answer my question without all the details of the context, so considering what you've all said, I think my remaining question is really whether it's going to be a bit rubbish for DS not living near his school friends (and for us, as we'll end up ferrying him about more). He's very outgoing, so doesn't have problems making friends if there were other kids about in our street, but there aren't that many.

Near home. I'd rather my child was running about having fun then stuck static in a car.

What if you change your job and your ds went to school near your current work?

I would go for home. A 30 minute commute doesn't seem out of the way - mine often takes an hour and plenty of people have longer journeys- it seems a bit strange that there wouldn't be a childminder or breakfast club/after school club available to allow you to manage the commute. I can use breakfast club from 7.30 at one school and have a childminder who would take from 7.30 asset least (maybe earlier but I haven't had to ask for that).

We still have the sibling rule (siblings higher priority than distance) in Herts.

Yes, it would be a bit rubbish for your DS not to have friends near where he lives. Also, it is extremely useful to have a network of people who can have your DC over for all those times when you need someone to have them for 10mins / half an hour / a couple of hours! (We of course return the favours too).

Talking about siblings, bear in mind that, if formal on-a-map catchment areas are v ever brought in, those can bump out of catchment siblings below all other catchment. And whilst they often grandfather siblings of existing pupils, they don't always.

Sorry. Just saw your update.

Whether it will be rubbish for him really depends where the other kids at the work school live. If they are scattered it is likely to be fine. If they are all close, it can be very, very hard.

Which is it and I'll explain a bit more but don't want to post a long irrelevant post.

Near home - every time. For a number of reasons :

1. Sitting in a car for an hour a day (when you're 4 or 5) is imo hard / waste of time.

1. He will want to have play dates / be invited for parties at the weekend which will mean you travelling, and actually people may decline play dates / parties you organise because they don't drive / don't want to do a round trip of an hour.
2. Presuming as he grows that he might join sporting teams - football / rugby etc. It's so much easier if that is near home and my DS and lots of his classmates do it together.
3. It's what irregular said - I agree it's ideally about being part of the community. For you as much as for your DS, making a network of local mums that socialise etc. I wouldn't want to do that at work.
4. School is much less likely to change than work.

Could you move nearer your work? Sounds like it would make a big difference to your quality of life.

Home. You might unexpectedly change jobs like I did.

Hi libraries (love the name!)
Hard to say - we know of at least one person who comes from far afield, but let's assume most of the kids live close to the school.

I think your Ds will lose out living further away from his school friends - either that or you will spend your whole life driving him around. For example if he gets an invitation to a 2 hour party on a weekend. If he goes to school near home chances are party will be nearby so you can take him, go home and get something done. With school near work parties will also be about 30 mins away so wouldn't be worth your while coming home so you will end up spending a lot of time waiting around for him. Also, it will be very difficult for him to have friends over to his house as their parents probably won't want to drive 30 mins to collect their kids - or again more driving for you as you would have to take them home.

(Thanks)

Ok. Well my DD's go to a school where about 50% of the kids live within 5 mins walk of each other and the rest are scattered at about our distance (1.5 miles).

The disadvantages are mostly to do with the random socialising opportunities that the other kids have. They bump into one another trick or treating. They play out in the same roads. When they get older, they walk to school together. We are a bit out on a limb with all of that.

If you live further away and the others are close you also miss the seeing each other at activities - Beavers, swimming lessons, that type of thing.

If the other kids live close, you are also likely to either miss out on playing after school/going to tea, or you're going to have to do an hour's round trip to drop the child home. Now, for all sorts of reasons not every family can do those things, but you are ruling them out/making them difficult.

There is also the fact that parties etc are likely to be at the school end, so long round trips. Ditto anything at the school - clubs, school fayre, etc.

HTH a bit.

Ok, thanks libraries and everyone. That's really helpful.

If you choose the one near work, be prepared to be a taxi service for a good few years so that they can see their friends. I did this with my ds and even though it's a pain in the bum sometimes, I did it without moaning because I chose to send him to that school. He also went to the secondary there as it was much better than my catchment one but life got a lot easier when he was about 14 because he could get the train home (although that's more expensive!) It didn't stop him making friends and he had one really good friend with a great mum who would often have him round after school until I could pick him up. I couldn't reciprocate very often but we did more weekends where his friend would stay. It will impact things like beavers, scouts etc as he wanted to go to the same place as his friends and I am still driving over there once a week in the evenings as he is in Explorers there.

Home. Without doubt. Otherwise he won't know the children around him. And you won't have local people to rely on.

Near to work.

Class assemblys are every half term, plus assemblys when they get star of the week ect. Then sports days and afternoon nativity plays.

If your planning on staying in your job for the long term anyway.

Be aware that the sibling rule priority can change, it did in our county and now out of catchment siblings are lower priority than in catchment children without siblings.

It's funny isn't it, that's the trouble that no 2 schools work the same. Compared to brandnew's school, our school only has class assembly once a year, never has 'merit' assemblies and there are always 2 performances of the nativity (one of which is straight after drop off at 8.50am). There are going to be things (parents evening - by which they usually mean between 3 and 5!), sports days etc but you need imo to keep some annual leave back for those things / unexpected illness.

It's actually annoying namechange every topic they do they do an assembly with a look at our work in the classroom after. By the time parents eve comes around you've seen it all already.

I don't think it's unusual my fb is always full of dc all over the country getting stars of the week in assemblys.

It's crazy isn't it?

Home definitely. Spend some cash on a small economical run around.

A good friend has just moved house & kept her son in the same school, 30 mins commute like yourself. He's in reception. She's already finding it all quite stressful.