Can't decide on what Primary School and it's stressing me out

[Adriana87]

Hi all. My son got into Concordia Academy in Romford. It is rated as outstanding and I have no issues with it apart from travel. On a normal day it's 10-15 minutes drive but doing a test run during rush hour, it took me 30 minutes.

There is another School, Draper Priory, which is much closer and was previously rated Outstanding but has since dropped to Good. I was considering a switch, especially as they have a high school linked to it, but I convinced myself not to mess things around and did not bother make the switch this week just gone. I called up the school/council and they said they are still making late changes so to get my switch in but it did not happen.

Now, he's due to do a welcome day next week at Concordia Academy and I am thinking the other school will be similar. What do you guys reckon? Stick to my guns or just make the switch?

The travel for Concordia shouldn't be too bad as one of my partner or I should be working from home all days of the week.

Any help or advice will be much appreciated.

Oh so difficult. Have you visited Draper Priory and are you happy with it? If you change jobs stop working from home I would think it could become difficult with the journey? It also takes at least 75 minutes out of the time when you could otherwise work (you will need to allow extra time so you don't risk being late to pick him up). I would think realistically changing school now would disrupt the settling activities.
What does you partner think? I don't think being outstanding is in itself a good reason for doing the drive, it depends on the other options.

We drove 30 mins to an outstanding primary school, it wasn't a big deal but found that friends were largely 30 min drive away, play dates are not as easy to organise, you definitely need a car! Also it went from outstanding to requiring improvement during our time their and finally when it came to secondary school, we found the planned secondary school wasn't what we expected and so therefore chose a school within walking distance, which has enabled friendships to flourish. But it's been hard work as DC knew no one from the school.

If I had my time again,I would definitely chose local

Thanks all. Because of Covid, the most I've seen of both schools is from the outside and on the website. Even taking him to nursery now, I always appreciate getting him their for 8am to have time to eat before starting work. With this school, I would have to be getting him to breakfast classes for around half 7 which means a very early start for us both.

I would look to change, dropping at 7:30 is very early for a 4yr old !

I'd go closer. You'll realise massive benefits later

Ended up choosing the school further away. The other school, despite having a good Ofsted rating had most of their performance metrics below the area and national average. Also, didn't get the best impression during my visit.

If I could go back in time, I would have chosen my schools closer to the area. I do regret not really taking the travel into consideration a little more. The school is about a 20 minute drive but their two roads I have to get past that always has roadworks which will double the time.

Sucks but just have to accept it now.