A choice: Walk to local school or drive 5 mins

[Flum]

to school which may be slightly better and has a 'middle class' tag. Whereas local school has big catchment of housing ass and council.

I think the value of enjoyable walk to school outweighs benefits of 'middle class' school, what do you think?

Potentially gonna bung them in the private school down the road when they are 7 anyway to get em knocked into shape a bit before seniors.

I'll just say this in favour of the local school - my next door neighbour's child goes to "the other" school in our area (they are both lovely schools with super pupils) - so she walks the other way every morning.

We barely see her and my kids hardly know her name. Next door but one h/ever we see all the time, often walk to school or home with them, knock on each other's doors for "take me kids to school" type favours etc.

Admittedly the DS is actually in DD's class, but in fact he is more pally with my DSs, so that's not the reason really. Children in our road go to a few different schools - one catholic, one private, one for ASD, good reasons for them of course - but the majority go to our school and it's a good thing IMO, as long as other things are equal of course!

We had the same choice. Went for the local one, with the slightly dodgy Ofsted report and the socially mixed intake. DD1 is still only Yr1, but so far we are entirely happy with the decision. Walking to school and living round the corner from several friends (AKA babysitters, liftsharers, playmates ...) is a HUGE plus and not to be underestimated.

And you never know, you may still love it when your child is 7 and think how much money you'll save ;-)

40 min a long walk with kids
we do 25 min on a good day and I/we wouldn't do any further than that

40 min a long walk with kids
we do 25 min on a good day and I/we wouldn't do any further than that