Help me decide between two schools before the 15th!

[LolNotFunny]

One is a very small village CoE school 5 mins drive down the road. Got a lovely vibe from the place and the head spent over two hours with us showing us round and talking to kids and teachers. Not religious but think I can overcome slight uncomfortableness about prayers, daily worship (assemblies) etc.

Other is an infant school in a small town 10 mins drive away. It’s also very small and we got a lovely vibe when we visited. Would have to move up to a junior school after year 2 where the class sizes are bigger.

Pro’s and cons to both but any thoughts welcome!

How small is the village school? Could friendships become and issue further down the line?

Navigating this but for moving from
infants to juniors. I’d absolutely go with closest and full primary. We & our DS absolutely love his infant school and are so sad there’s no junior school attached to it. A full primary would’ve avoided this upset!

I’d go for the first school (assuming it’s not tiny). Close and no change for juniors are both a big win.

Do you meet the admission criteria for the school that is further away?
Are one or both likely to be oversubscribed?
Are there any nearer schools that would be in catchment?

Infant class sizes are capped at 30. All things being equal, I’d go for the nearest. Easier for maintaining friendships out of school.

We’ll definitely get into the CoE, very likely the other one too. We have a school in our village but not impressed with it hence going a little further afield. The CoE school is small, reception class is max 15 pupils and the classes are mixed. Slight concern as the head said the mixed classes aren’t always equal so in the year 5/6 class there could be more year 5’s than 6’s so our son could have less friends of his own age and be moving up to secondary without his younger friends.

The other school has a linked junior school so there would be a natural transition there.

I think the disadvantage of having to move to junior school (which may not even be a disadvantage, one of my DC was glad of the chance to go somewhere new and make new friends) is offset by the small closest school. Small year groups sound great at 4 but can be claustrophobic by junior school age.

hopefully you are planning to do this anyway, but make sure to put your local school lower down on your list, just in case the other 2 schools are unexpectedly oversubscribed, as at least you will have an unwanted "close by" school.

Does the village school have 15 in reception + 15 in year 1, making a class of 30? Or 15 in reception and year 1 combined? How about the town school?

Is the 5min/10 mins drive with no traffic, or at rush hour?

What's the wrap around care like? (If you need it)

If school one was walkable I'd go for that one, although I would be slightly off by how small it is (scope for friendships). Like you, the daily worship would not bother me despite not being religious myself.

However, given that you have to drive to both I would lean towards the bigger school as first choice and cross your fingers you get in (but knowing you'd satisfied with the village school of you didn't). There's really not much in a five minute drive vs a ten minute drive. If school two was a twenty minute drive it would be different but there's hardly anything in this. Ideally, I'd choose walkable over driving any day. As your walkable options are not good though, I'd choose the bigger of the two you need to drive to. More scope for friendships is a huge plus.

Do they both feed into the same secondary school? If not, I would choose based on which was more likely to send kids to my catchment school.

Both schools sound nice so there is probably no wrong decision. Are the ks2 results in the linked junior and run through primary similar?

If you can avoid having to drive to school it makes mornings much easier. Not a must but a nice bonus.