I'm interested in your opinions on this one, please, because I truly don't know what to do.
At present, we live in an LEA with 2 very good single-sex grammar schools, results are amongst the highest in the UK.
I'm not a fan of single-sex schools, but I do understand that they're supposed to be better for girls (we have a dd).
Now, at present, if we do nothing, dd will probably get into the local Catholic primary school (I'm Catholic, regular churchgoer, fete cake-baker etc so hopefully no worries on that score). It's a nice school, but it's a bus-ride/car journey/40min walk away.
I've always had the crazy idea that I want to be able to walk my child to school, so I'm not thrilled about this. The local non-Catholic school is a 7 min walk away, but it has a very bad rep. and I really would like dd to have a Catholic education, as I did. The OH is not Catholic and doesn't really mind either way.
There is a private Catholic girls' school 5 minutes walk away from our house. It looks wonderful, it has good facilities, a breakfast and afterschool club (I have to work 3 days a week so this or a CM is essential), and it coaches its pupils for the 11+ for the aforesaid grammar school.
The local Catholic secondary is not so good, in fact it's a bit grotty. The not-so-local Catholic secondary in our LEA is fantastic, excellent reputation etc. but we are not in the catchment and would have to move, in which case we would be looking at putting dd into the primary school which feeds it.
However, the catchment of the excellent school is, of course, tres expensive and we would be looking at trading in our big 4 bed house close to the park and shops for a 2/3 bed terrace in grim street backing onto tube line in area with few facilities.
So..... I suppose what I'm asking is what would you do?
Option 1) Stay put, put dd into the private school and hope she passes the 11+ but then ends up in a single-sex non-catholic (but academically excellent) school?
Option 2) Stay put, go with local Catholic primary and secondary school, run risk of getting not so good education?
Option 3) Move house, downsize dramatically and hope/pray that we can get her into the excellent Catholic school (I have a work colleague who's on the board of governors of the primary school there and he told me that they had 22 siblings applying for places this year - the curse of being Catholic, I suppose...)
Option 4) Move to another area entirely and hope for the best??
I hate this....