Would you send siblings to different primary schools? ??

[LegoLover1986]

Hi I'm looking for at bit if advice . My eldest son is in year 3 currently at a school I have lost all faith in. Without going into too much detail I would not even consider sending my youngest son who I have to apply for a place by January. So now I'm faced with a huge problem. My first choice school for the youngest iv had an unsuccessful appeal to get my eldest into. And there's literally no chance of him ever getting in due to it being oversubribed, him being quite low down on the waiting list and junior classes already having 37 in each class. So it's not a possible option to move the eldest to this school. My eldest is also dead against moving schools he struggles so much socially and making friends and altough I know educationally to move him wpuld benefit him emotionally it will really set him back. I can probably (very strestfully) manage both school runs with the help of my mum and other parents at my first choice at my youngest sons school. suppose really what I want to know is is it damaging for my boys to have different schools . The idea doesnt sit well with me at all. :(

Go with your heart, if you don't like the school and have an option to send the youngest to another school you prefer then go for that. For various reasons I had three in three different schools last year - we took the best choice we had for each of them and don't regret it at all. Sure, it was hard with the locations/times and we had to make good use of breakfast clubs and after school clubs but we made it work and the girls were all happy. This year we have two schools between the three of them!

My heart is telling me not to send him to his brothers school as his brother being there has affected my mental health with all the ongoing issues iv had with the school and regretting even putting him there in the first place. But my heart is also breaking at the thought of them going to different schools. It doesn't feel fair to send the youngest to a better school where he will get better opportunities and I feel like it will affect their relationship :(

Was it three primary schools you was dealing with ??

With hind sight yes I would of sent my Dc to different primary schools. Ds struggled and spent a lot of time in trouble. Dd told me recently that it used to make her very sad and give her tummy aches when she saw her brother in trouble and heard teachers shouting at him. She has been much more relaxed since he went up to high school but funnily enough so has my ds since leaving the school, he is like a different person with a couple of minor mishaps.

My children attend different secondary schools. It gives everyone room to grow and not be compared to a sibling. But the school holidays are often at completely different times - as much as two weeks sometimes.

Yes I know holidays will be an issue as my current primary is Catholic and the school I'd like my youngest to go to is a community school and their holidays are very different as my friends children go this school and we can never meet up in the holidays for that reason . Iv had a third option thrown at me with another local catholic school not my first choice but miles better than current school . The school is full but the head teacher has agreed that if my youngest got a place my eldest could attend with him as he's Christened into the faith etc. I honestly don't know what to do as I know my eldest would struggle so much socially to move schools. It would be best for him educationally but I fear it would make him deeply unhappy

It does depend:

1. Can you do it practically? We have separate infant/juniors and loved a less common juniors. We worked out with the change between dd1 would have been picked up 20 minutes late every day dd2 was at infants, and decided that wasn't fair, even thought the office said she could wait there.

Bear in mind that if a friend says at application time" oh don't worry, I'll pick him up" then they may not want to do this for 4 years. They may leave, your dc may fall out, they may start swimming every day straight after school or they may simply find come September that the casual comment back in January and they never thought they would have to honour isn't something they're prepared to do. Even if none of the above happen you'll still have days when their dc is sick, or going to the dentist etc. so you need a back up plan.

1. Inset days will be different: Actually I like having just one dc for a special day-but I've been sahm and my work is very flexible. If you struggle with holidays then that's potentially 10 days where there will be no child care because there's not usually holiday care available.
2. Clashes: Sports' day, parents' evening, Christmas show etc. Heck even our infant/juniors which has around 60 children going up every year managed to schedule the one and only year R performance with the one and only year 3 performance one year. It effected about 15 parents, so it was altered. If it's just one it'll be tough luck.
3. "It's not fair"/"You love him more": They'll each see things at the others school (like a school trip) that they think the other has better.

But there's more to it too. You've left your old one at a school which you don't like. I suspect you may have said some negative things about it. It could come back to feeling you don't care about him-what's good enough for him isn't good enough for dbro. I speak from personal experience here. Although in my case I was eventually moved to the "wonderful, so much better" school-and found very quickly it was a big smoke screen where they hid the issues so they never got resolved. Dp never really accepted it and wanted me to tell them how much better the other school was which felt disloyal before I'd even got to the not true level.

1. Accept the new school has faults too: You may not see them but they're there-and if they're not obvious they may be more concerned in hiding them than solving them (see point 4). You may get 6 months down the line and realise you've jumped from frying pan into the raging furnace.

None of these are reasons not to; just to consider before you decide.

I have done this for the past 5 years. It's a complicated story but primary school was failing badly but eldest was in year 5 so the cons of moving outweighed the pros so he was left. Middle was unhappy so was moved to another primary. Youngest did reception at the failing primary and was then moved to same school as eldest which is a through school. So still have 2 primaries until next year when middle will join her brothers

Witchend totally valid points and iv considered them all. Hence why I still haven't made a decision. Childcare would be spilt between my mother who lives a 2 minute walk from the school and doesn't work. Mother in law who only works 2 week days and 4 close friends I have who have older children at the school who fully support my decision after seeing what iv been through with my current school and it would only be for 10 minutes after school as morning times there is a 10 minute difference in the schools starting time and they are a 5 minutes . I myself only work one day during the week and have most school holidays off as I only work for one lady who is amazing with me as she has kids herself and I just make up my time whenever I need it off. My main concern is the emotional aspect of it all. I know what they offer in the school I want to send my youngest too will really grab my eldest attention and I feel like he will not understand why his younger brother can't come to his school. I also don't want their relationship to suffer and become a competition or someone feeling left out. We are attending the school which has room for the eldest tonight and hope he likes it and sees something to interest him enough to want to move so then we can just apply for younger brother x

37 is a very big class, is that even legal?

Yes there are no legal limit to junior class sizes unlike 30 for the infants

I would go for the new catholic school that can take both

send youngest to new RC school or better option them move the older one... logistical pain but not if you dont like school 1