Area with majority faith primaries

[punjama]

We are expecting first child ~ September. Currently deciding whether to buy house now or later (living rent free in parents house which is empty 6-9 m of the year so not cramped).

Ideally hoping to buy somewhere where we can live for 10 years minimum (as looking at 10 year fixed mortgage).

Always liked the idea of leaving London. A particular place i like seems to have a majority of faith based primaries which are closest to houses within budget.

Is this a risky purchase to make? Obviously it will be another 4-5 years before the kid goes to school...and appreciate that you don't particularly need to be of same faith to get acceptance and that rules are changing ATM (and might change again within 5 years)...but all in all a bit worried about having to go with least subscribed (and hence most likely to be least well performing?) school as last resort in worst case scenario

Is it always to good to have at least 1 good non faith school inside catchment area when choosing house?

many thanks for any advice.

Catchment is largely misleading - a large number no longer have these anymore.

No-one has a crystal ball - all you can do is check out current status of schools in the area, whether they're consistently oversubscribed and if they go far enough down the admissions priority to get to non faith entrants.

Before buying a 'forever' home I would definitely have a good look at the schools. If you see the house purchase more as an investment, somewhere to live and do up and sell again a year before school starts, then schools matter a lot less.

and appreciate that you don't particularly need to be of same faith to get acceptance and that rules are changing ATM

You need to educate yourself. Many faith schools, especially 'good' ones, you do indeed need to be of the same faith to get acceptance. Betting on getting a place in a good faith school for a faith that is not yours is a huge gamble! Yes sometimes there are spaces for non-faith applicants. Very often this only happens in faith schools with not-so-good reputations, however.

Also, not very much is changing regarding faith school admissions; only (maybe) for new schools, but not for already existing schools I believe.

I think it is a fair bet that if a school has been filling up with only children 'of the faith' for the last five years, then it might very well continue to do so for the next five, unless it starts getting bad results/bad OFSTED in which case you might get in, but probably wouldn't want to anyway.

So if you are not practising Christian, and are looking at an area that has several good Christian faith schools, that are usually full with practising Christian families, then all these good schools are really irrelevant to you as you couldn't expect to get a place at any of them (unless they go downhill). You only really need to look at the schools that you would stand a fair chance of getting into on distance. This can change, of course, in the five years until your DC starts school. However if there are several good schools in the area (that you do not qualify for) and one less-than-good school, then it is unlikely that a new non-faith school will be opened in that time period.