How much should primary schools influence where we buy?

[mimou]

We've just had our second child and are probably going to have to consider moving in the next year as our current tiny 2 bed is not going to be big enough when DS2 moves out of our room.

We've seen several houses we quite like and could just about afford, but all of them fall in the catchment area of the worst primary school in the district. It has been in special measures, and although it seems to be improving still only scores 60-70% level 4 in English/Maths as opposed to 90% for most of the other schools.

Our oldest is only 2 but there's no guarantee that we'll be able to afford to move again before he starts school. On the other hand it's very much more difficult to find something we like and can afford near the other schools.

Should we be resigning ourselves to buying something much smaller for the sake of being in a good catchment area?

What do you want more, a big house and a poor school, or a small house and a good school?

Yes,to be quite honest ,unless you want to pay for private education.Your dc's education should be paramount.

There's no right answer, is there? It's about what is more important to you.
And how extreme the choices are. I wouldn't move somewhere cramped to get my children into a slightly better school; I probably would to get them away from a failing school.

I think I didn't explain myself very well. Obviously I'm not going to put my children's education at risk simply because I want a big house, but I have no experience of interpreting this sort of data. I'm interested to see whether people think that results in the 60-70 range indicate a failing school that isn't going to get better and we should rule it out now even though there are a few years before either of our sons would be going to school, or would anyone consider moving to have the space we need and waiting to see if the results improve?

There's a definite difference in demographic in the different catchment areas - which is why we can afford to buy in the poorer area - so it's hard to know how much poor results are down to the school itself and how much a result of the pupils' home environment.

And I'm not talking about buying a big house - just a slightly bigger one. If we rule this area out completely at this stage, the alternative is probably to buy something the same or even smaller than the shoebox we are in at the moment (which is also in the catchment area of the poorer school).

We downsized slightly to a house that was most definitely a stepping stone house to get ds1 into an outstanding primary school.

The hitch was the housing market went crazy so we were then stuck in the stupid house until last year. Our intention was to live there for 3 years, we stayed for 6.

Good news was that because ds2 then had a place (siblings in policy applied and we lived 1/2 mile away from the school) we could then move much further out and I now drive to school.

Got a huge house in comparison now, reason why? Because the school it is near is pants. Originally we would have stayed near the boy's school but having both our children in the school meant that we had a lot more scope for where we could now live.

Although I would prefer not to drive to school the deal is the house is amazing, it is our forever house and the children are in an amazing school. It was hard but worth it in the end.

If the school you were looking at was just low results that is one thing but special measures would have me running for the hills. Sorry.

What about looking at houses with the potential to extend in the future? So smallish to begin with but where the neighbours have clearly extended to make much bigger houses. Plans for extensions etc done in the last couple of years are usually available on-line on your council's planning website.

I think parental help and support goes a long way with to help the DCs primary education, but even so, I don't think I'd consider a failing school.

We went for the bigger/nicer house over the more upmarket area, but DCs go to primary school (state) out of our catchment area. Could this be an option for you?

Yes, special measures would worry me. But it is always worth visiting the school, asking around, trying to work out in what ways it is changing. Do the children and parents love it? Does it have new leadership? Do the staff have a shared vision of what they want to change and how they are going to achieve that?

You may find that, despite the poor results on paper, this is a school where children feel happy and safe. But if you don't, then I would move heaven and earth to make sure my children didn't have to go there.

X-posts, I'm not great at interpreting the data as I haven't had to do it for years but, I find the opening paragraph about the school quite telling.

When we were looking we even stopped people in the street (dog walkers, OAP's, people dropping off kids at schools) to ask them what they thought of the area/school etc

We were in a different situation as were relocating 100 mile from where we were. In hindsight we should have rented, get a real feel for the area as local knowledge is paramount.

Like for example my friends live next to the neighbours who have a party every weekend in their hot tub in their garden Everyone you speak to knows this, you can see the hot tub on google maps but if my neighbour was selling her house she wouldn't tell you this.

It depends whether you feel the school is on a downward slope (i.e getting worse), or heading upwards (getting better). Many schools recover well after special measures, and in many cases become quite popular, but this can take a few years, as mud sticks.

We are in the same situation as you but further down the line... What I mean is we now have two DSs - one 3.2 and the other 18 months old and we are currently in a 2-bedroom house and space is tight! This is our experience so far.

We have been thinking of moving for a while but in the end, it's the primary school thing that did it for us. There's one outstanding school where we live now but it's CoE and it is so popular that you don't have any chance of getting in UNLESS you live a street away... The other schools around us are pants. I will rather pay for private than send them there. We actually started looking at private (and have not discounted completely but it's a cost issue) and then we decided that we should move anyway but top priority is to get into a good school.

We looked into a few nearby areas (we wanted to stay near where we are, SE London BTW) and saw a few houses and in the end, we 'honed' in on one specific area with one outstanding primary but several good ones around. We had to discount the outstanding one as the catchment is literally 136 metres this year and people pay a real premium for the location to be in catchment for that school and we weren't prepared to compromise THAT much for a school. We have met a few people with children in that school and it's been very positive so far so fingers crossed. There is another very good school nearby and we are now buying a house that is in catchment for that school. We are not too worried about secondary as we feel that at primary level, the family still has lots of influence and can help with the studies. If my DSs show academic promise before secondary school, they would be at that age where they can 1. travel further to school 2. DH and I plan to pay our mortgage off by then so we can pay for private if need be.

What I am trying to say is I don't think you can move for that sole purpose in that catchment and school standards change every year. But it is definitely a top priority. You need to be happy with house, area and school. You might end up compromising a little on one or the other (we are compromising slightly on the school but honestly, this 'second' choice school still has mostly 1s and 2s on their Ofsted as opposed to 'first' choice that is rated mostly 1s so it's not a huge difference in my opinion!) but you have to be happy with the compromise. IMO I will not move into a dream house if my kids have to go to a failing school, no way! I would have stayed put where we are now (no matter how tight space is) and pay for them to go to private school with the amount of money we have 'saved' on not moving to a bigger house! It's not easy and on hindsight, I wish we had thought more about the school issue before we bought our current house (while we were childless I might add!).

Sorry, got confused. Meant to say we have met a few people with children in the second choice school who have been happy with it. :)

We moved into a (very) small house to get my children into an excellent school. Once DS1 got in, we moved out of its catchment (much cheaper) into a bigger house. DS2 automatically got a place regardless of where we lived.

We are moving to an area simply for the outstanding secondary school. DD has been accepted into a junior school which is a feeder to the secondary.
I have no idea what levels are or even where the JS is in the rankings.

Be very careful about moving out of the area and relying on sibling place as I have read quite a few boroughs/councils are changing the rules so that sibling can only get a place in the school if they are still in catchment!

Agree about the siblings in catchment thing, we waited until ds2 was at the age we could apply for a school place and then moved.

But if the siblings bit had been oversubscribed (90 places) then they go as the crow flies, nearest to the school which is why we waited. We moved in the February and we were told we had a place 1st March.

You could always rent! There is a 4 bed house near to our school that rents out every year for people applying for places!

Unfortunately I don't know anyone who lives near here with school age children. Apart from Ofsted where can I look to find out about schools in the area? Any ideas?

This might sound like a strange idea but if you call your local estate agents and pretend you are interested in buying a house where your top priority is a good primary school and see what houses they recommend and what schools are near there. A good estate agent will know what the good schools (primary and secondary) in the area BUT do not trust them in terms of catchment as that changes every year and they really wouldn't have a clue whether a particular house in the catchment of a particular school, all they can say is whether the vendor's children go there etc. The area we are buying in we actually didn't even consider at first as it wasn't as well know as some of the nearby areas but one of the local agents I went into started telling me about it and we did a bit more research and saw a few houses in the area and bingo, it had everything we wanted.

Depends upon your priorities ... my child's education was paramount so when we sold our house, we moved to an area with great schools. Personally I'd rather have a small house but a great school. A large house won't better your child's prospects but there's a good chance that a great school will do.

I got my lowdown on our local schools by joining a toddler group and talking to my neighbours. It's mad - a complete obsession. Every detail of catchment is disucssed (I can tell you exactly where the catchment boundary for my local school is being redrawn to this year) and numbers pored over. By the end of my first toddler group I knew I had to fill in an "Expression of interest" form for the nursery attached to the school evern though DS wouldn't go for another 2 years.....

You could always go and have a look at the schools you're thinking of. I wouldn't just rely on an Ofsted report - god when I think of some of the so called Ofsted outstanding nurseries I've looked at ....

By the time you've been round a few schools, you'll soon be able to distinguish between a good school and a bad one. The school we liked for our child wasn't the 'best in the area' originally but we thought it was great and in December this year, it received an outstanding Ofsted report. Things can change in a couple of years, headteachers move on etc...

Also some advice I was given was to look at the
'added value' mark given. Some schools do well because, to put it frankly, their intake is from educated families - it's not necessarily a reflection on the teaching at the school.

Something you do need to consider is how you would feel to buy a smaller house in catchment for a better school and then not get in.

The school that has traditionally been the catchment for our road rejected my neighbours child last year and my DD this year. Yet the child 5 houses further away got in 2 years ago.

You only have to read the many hundreds of threads on primary appeals recently to see there is a huge shortfall of places in some areas, and catchment at more popular schools is shrinking.

You do need to consider schools but don't make it the be-all-and-end-all of your house search.

Having done some more digging (i.e. looked the stuff up again myself rather than relying on DH's report of what he'd found), it seems that the school we are nearest to was closed down and reopened in 2007 under a new name and with a new headteacher. Since then it has apparently improved and got a 2 "good" Ofsted rating last year. The Ofsted report suggests that it is still improving so perhaps the situation's not as dire as I thought, although there was some mention of a relatively high number of pupils with behavioural/disciplinary problems . Their website looks like that of a school that is making an effort at least. The next nearest is a C of E school in a village. It gets very good results but is also very oversubscribed. The only neighbours we have with school-age children somehow got their kids in there, but we don't quite know how.

I didn't realise you could go and look round schools when you don't have a child of school age.

Yes, we started looking once our child was about 2 years old. Schools are more than happy to show you around

Mimou it is absolutely not too early to look! If you don't move for a year then you will be applying for a school place shortly after you move. You definitely won't have time to move again before you apply. If you don't see any houses you like/can afford near the schools you want, can you sell your house & rent for a while? You will then have the added advantage of being chain-free when you want to buy again.

If you need to move you should consider schools and areas now.

I believe that there is a right school for every child so don't just look at exam results, look at what you want for your child. If you want community strength and mates round the corner, go for the local school. If you want inclusion, choose a school with a mixed cultural intake. If you need breakfast club and after school, look at those facilities. Would Dad feel comfortable in the playground?

Thanks to the National Curriculum all children learn pretty much the same thing and most primaries are fairly effective nowadays. But at secondary level things are different and you may need to consider a school to suit your child in the future, when your oldest is 8 or 9. Hang out outside the local schools at 3.30 and you will see what kind of families use the school. These are the people you will be seeing every day for the next 7 years - it's important to have a couple you think you will get on with.