How far would you travel to school? 1 hour??

[nat73]

We are in a dilemma. Our village school is all things lovely but academic results (KS2) are woeful. We have no farm so our kids will need to find their own ways in the world.
I have spoken to the school about my concerns and they ultimately said this is what we offer, if you want something else you need to go elsewhere.
Village school is 200m walk = 15 mins dawdling.
The alternative is another village primary 20 mins away which is more academically focused or an independent school which is a 1 hour bus ride away. (We cannot afford the prep school which is 35 mins away)

DD is in Year 2 so we were thinking of moving her for September. DS is 3 years old so we will keep him in nice but dim village school for KS1.

Is 1 hour (each way) too far? My heart says yes but having seen the school and how great the facilities and teachers are I have confess I am tempted!

Hmmm. In my experience (as a teacher!) the main thing that Ofsted use in deciding a schools status is the results. They actually do not care as much about all the other stuff- if a schools results are really good they get given a good or excellent, if results are bad they get a needs improvement or unsatisfactory. They cannot give a 'good' if the school has bad results. Bear in mind, the way they judge the schools results is related to the targets of the students. So I would think the overall intake of the school is not very academic, but they do well with the students they get. In which case the school is probably fine, but you may be right in that they may not get many very able students and therefore may not differentiate well for those few students.

Is your child happy? You've said she's meeting expectations.
If they are and you can give some extra support at home I think that's fine for primary. No one will be asking what her SATs were in 20 years time.

I can empathise with the OP. My children's school dropped from good to satisfactory to inadequate in the time we've been there. I kept excusing it as it's a big school, surrounded by faith schools, and put it down to more disadvantaged pupils. But recently other schools in more disadvantaged areas, are getting the same results and some doing a lot better. After 6 years I have to conclude that it's the ethos of the school and the management that is a problem, plus a lack of parents with high enough expectations - simply, I think, because they're complacent, they still think it's a good school, because it's in an area that feeds onto the better secondary in the town. Teachers teach to those expectations and focus on the middle and lower ability. There really are schools like this and when their are only a few higher ability children, they are held back from fulfilling their potential.

However, even with this realisation I did not move dc2 as they are happy socially at the school and tgat does count for a lot. As does the ease of using the most local school and we parents being able to work and have a decent work/life balance. We've been doing maths and English at home with dc2, once a week on each subject. If you can get a tutor, that could be time and money better spent than the independent 1 hour away. That's an exhausting journey for teenagers even. Will she have to do homework and music practice after that long journey? Sporting fixtures at weekends?

My Dc1 did 'catch up' once at a good secondary school and has probably made their value added look amazing, but they have a great study ethic and embraced the work at secondary school. A different child might not have.

there not their

You simply cannot get an OFSTED good with poor results. There could be many other things wrong with the school and still be good- but not results.

Surely the OFSTED could be up to 6yrs old, so the results may have been good 6yrs ago but have now dropped?

We were 20 min away from our prep and within a month of driving an hour round trip each way, we gave in and moved closer to the school! It was such a relief! Travelling is the worst bit of school challenges imo.

Thanks swimmingmom. That puts it into context! :-)

DD (nearly 8) has been commuting into London for Primary since Y1. It takes us 1.5 hrs each way.

She does after-school club everyday and then has dance and singing classes on three nights a week, so doesn't miss out on playdates (has one every single day really). We do have to do the odd run up to London for parties at weekends, but that is not a huge problem.

DH and I both work full-time and we get to spend much more time with DD because we're all in London and travelling together. The hour each way on the train is used for doing reading and homework or playing games.

Fortunately she is one of these children who has ridiculous amounts of energy so the early starts and late returns aren't a problem for her.

The school she was at in London (state primary) is extremely good whereas the primary in our village doesn't have a great reputation, has so-so results (and ridiculous amounts of homework) - everyone I spoke to locally told me to send her to the local indie prep.