Tow kids in two different schools

[FollowingAmirage]

So we moved house within a smallish kent city 2 years ago with the aim to move child 1 to the local school and then have child 2 start there! Said school was full and child number 2 was then given a R place in the first school at the other end if town! I just can't face to the commute everyday; it takes an hour round trip in the morning and another one in the afternoon for school drop off and pick up (with traffic and accounting for time finding a parking spot/walking to school etc.) now we have been offered a place for child number 1 (year 3) but child number 2 will still be on the waiting list (hopefully not for too long!). Will it be madness to have 2 kids in two different schools? Any one been there and can offer some tips?

You need to find a childminder who does drop-offs and pickups from one or other school, so that you can do the drop-offs and pickups for the other child at the normal times, and have a bit of flexibility to drop off and pickup the other child from the childminder's house outside the critical start- and end-of-school times when you can't be in two places at once. Hopefully it won't be for long! Good luck.

Thank you for the reply! Yes, I think I will have to. As pick up is at exactly 3.15 for both so impossible to do both at the same time!

Or you could find out if there is an after-school club at one of the schools.

So child 1 has a place in your preferred school?

Can you homeschool child 2 and await a place?

Something else to consider is the school holidays, this year lots of the schools in my area have half term on different dates. If you work & need to take time off to cover holidays you could be looking at up to 4 weeks off for this half term (we have some schools off for the next 2 weeks & some that don’t start until others have finished)

Have the school said what number your older child is in the waiting list?

We were at FOUR different ones - 3 children at 3 different (private) ones primary and secondary (the girls could never get into each other's schools at 11 even - Haberdashers and North London Collegiate - similar schools academically so a pity but was fine in the end even to age 18) and their father at a 4th!

At primary age the girls got school coaches a short drive from our house or tube. The older one when she was 5 used to leave the house around 7.20am to walk to the tube, go 2 stops, get out, put her on the school coach and then I would return to the tube and commute into Central London for work.

I wanted single sex schools so that was our choice (and we had boys and girls). We also paid someone eg when my second was at school in Kensington we paid to put our daily nanny (by that time working part time and bringing her baby to work) through her driving test and took her out on lots of practice driving and then she would drive into Kensington every day and back and then collect the next child too from the coach. That was at least an hour of her time a day. We also paid for her petrol and wage too.

When we had children 4 and 5 (boy twins in same school thankfully)..... we hired someone for after school by an ad in the paper - she picked them up at about 3 and brought them home. So I suppose splitting it between two parents (at one stage my son went to his father's prep school so they drove to school together whilst I sorted out the girls) and a paid child carer is one option particularly if you both work full time and can afford to pay someone.

Wow @Xenia, the logistics of having kids in different schools sounds very complex. I can't get my head around having 2 in different school. Not sure how you coped

Luckily I work from home (a fully remote job not because of Covid), so different school holidays/inset days are not an issue. I thought about home schooling the little one (reception) until he gets to our preferred choice (the school his older brother is starting at) but realistically I will need some quite time during the day for me to do my job properly...something to consider though!

I htink we were fine in the morning but it was the collection that was harder as we both worked until at least 6 (their father is a teacher but his fee paying school had them all stay at school until about 5.30 every day! and he was head of music so endless concerts, bands after school and weekends etc so not the easy to fit in with children job you might think and even Saturday school when he started there). That is why we basically paid for the school collection - we paid someone from 3 - 6pm each day. Actually at one stage the twins stayed in after school club until 6pm as needed.
Anyway I hope you manage to sort it out.