Accept allocated nearer primary school or keep children at current school?

[Cherrycola222]

I need advice!! DS and DD attend a lovely primary school and have lovely friends. DS is in year 1 and DD is in nursery. I had to move house last year and live 13 miles away now. Moved them to a closer school but within the first week DS was physically hurt by another child and both children hated it so moved them back. Now on national offfer day I’ve been given that school as allocated offer. I can still apply for their current school and stand a good chance due to the sibling link but unsure to keep them where they are or move them again closer to home and accept the offer?

Don’t you need to accept the offer and then go on waiting list for the other one?

But quite unsettling to keep moving DC around

How are you managing to get them to school each day? Why didn’t you give them longer to settle in at the new school?

Accept allocated school, that's a no brainer.

Then I got confused with the 'them's.

Are you saying move older child again to the nearer school? Or try to get the little on into the far away school?

Another 7 years of travel 13 miles is a lot of miles for you and non local friends.
Different schools will be a nightmare.

I would go with the local school for both and push through the teething troubles

Always accept the offer. If you don't, admissions will no longer be obliged to help you. If you accept it, you can join waiting lists for other local schools. There may even be other local schools with places currently.

Commuting 13 miles to school is madness so you really do need to be looking at getting them both into a more local school, rather than trying to get your daughter a place at the one 13 miles away. The chances of her getting a place from the waiting list are incredibly limited, given how far away you live. That commute doesn't sound at all practical for 7 more years anyway. It will eventually isolate your children, not being local to their friends. It might be fine when they're little, but not when they're in upper KS2 and wanting to walk themselves to school with friends and socialise with them out of school.

I understand it's distressing to see your child unsettled and upset at a new school, but you need to give them time to settle. Moving them after a week, if they do struggle to settle, is really confusing and distressing for children. Sadly, when it comes to this age group, there will be odd incidents of children hurting each other, whether by accident or on purpose. Has your child never been hurt at his other school? Children need to learn to deal with conflict. Obviously if incidents keep occurring with the same child that is unacceptable, but you work with the school to raise the issue and ask for their support in dealing with it. Moving your child every time they are hurt would be crazy.

I get that it might be awkward to try to get your eldest back into the local school your daughter has been allocated. However, you have time now to visit other local schools with spaces for both of them. Hopefully you find something you like. Then you approach the move with the utmost positivity and give them both time to settle in properly, accepting that a bit of distress on your son's part is normal and expected in the circumstances. Change isn't always easy and seamless. However, he can learn to be happy elsewhere, with new friends who live in your new area. Sometimes it takes a child a whole term or more to accept their new norm and feel happy and settled in a new school, especially if they're very attached to the old one. That doesn't mean they'll never be happy. You just need to give it time

Good luck

I’m driving. It takes around 30/35 minutes. The local school is still a 10 minute drive away. Yes I feel I should have given them a little longer than 2 weeks to settle but the old school gave me the option to move back with immediate affect and I didn’t want to miss the opportunity. Mum guilt

Yes so I have accepted the offer, and then in 2 weeks they will see if there are any places at the school they already attend. The school says there are 10 places at the moment and DD has a brother already attending.

yes I know, I agree. Do you think I should just keep them where they are and do the travelling?

Yes I have accepted the offer.
yes I’m saying should I just accept that offer and keep it, and move older child there too so they both start in September. Or do I keep them where they are and just do the travelling.

thanks for the advice

Thank you for this advice I appreciate it.

so theres still 10 places at the current school and DD has a sibling link too so we stand a very good chance at getting a place.

im just worried they wont make friends or be happy at new school; they have lovely friends and thriving where they are. The teachers are great and so are the mums. It’s like a little family.

Are you the OP? Sorry, I'm confused by the different accounts.

Assuming you are, I'm wondering why you didn't originally apply for your son's current school for your daughter if you want them to stay there so badly? I just assumed you meant they were full and that's why she hadn't been offered a space there, now you live so far away. That's why I talked about the chances of you getting a space from the waiting list being so unlikely.

Even if they do have space, I really just think you'd be delaying the inevitable of needing to move them later down the line. It's easy to become misty eyed over current friendships, when your children are happy and settled, but young children are capable of making friends wherever they go. It's the easiest age for children to make new friends (a skill which sometimes becomes harder as they grow up). Young kids with tear around a playground with anyone. They will definitely make friends elsewhere (maybe not overnight, but within weeks of starting a new school they will start talking about new friends and forming relationships with new teachers etc). The longer you leave it, the harder the change will be.

Do you work near their current school, or are you heading back in the direction of your new home in between drop off and pick up? If you are heading back, that's over 2 hours of driving you're doing every day to get your children to and from school. That's madness. So tiring, and such a waste of fuel. If you do still work near their current school, I can see why that arrangement makes sense for now, unless your work circumstances change, but if you don't I would absolutely look at moving them both to a school nearer home. Their current school might very well be lovely, but there are plenty of other lovely schools out there too.

Hello yes I’m the OP. Thank you again for your advice. So when I moved the children to the more local school, it was the same week the cut off date for applications was. I had changed my preference to the new school. Then afterwards was when I moved them
back and therefore couldn’t change my application otherwise would be a late applicant. The advice from the council was
to keep it as
it is and wait until national offer day. Yes I work near the current school. I know you may be thinking why did I move so far away, but I didn’t have much choice in it after splitting with their dad.

Oh no I wasn't wondering why you moved at all, I guessed from the way you worded your opening post that it was down to circumstances out of your control.

If you work near the current school, it does make sense to go with it for now then, especially as they seem so happy and settled. If your work circumstances happened to change over the next 7 years though, and you ended up working nearer to home, it would be silly keeping them there for the sake of friendships, as they really will learn to be happy somewhere else if they needed to. The commute would be really silly if you weren't going that way for work.

Good luck