Choices

[DogCalledRudis]

1. CoE school, excellent academic ratings, top notch facilities, but very snooty and hideous uniforms.
2. Sports school -- sports distinction, pretty liberal, but has a reputation of 'rough'
3. very small and informal mixed ability school -- very pleasant, but still very new an in experimental stage.
4. Home ed -- in 2 years my DH retires and we'll go traveling long time, DC would need to be deregistered, so maybe start sooner?

I think you need to think carefully the plan of taking your teenager DS away from school for a few years to travel. As an expat, we moved around a lot, and as my DCs getting older it became increasing difficult, mainly for continuity of schooling, and their friendship group.
I totally understand the excitements and adventures of seeing the world, and to a certain extend it is a valuable education to them of knowing and experiencing different cultures.
I think if you are planning to stay in each city or places for few months, and then move on, it will be very difficult for your teenager DS to make any friends. And people in general will not invest in friendship knowing you aren't staying long.

Uniform is not a deciding factor, but at 1 it is truly awful. Somebody who decided them must have been on glue. Looks like a hybrid between hospital pyjamas and 70's curtains gone wrong.

I suspect most parents would choose 1 . It is clearly the better school. If it's snooty may be the accent will rub off on him which could really help his career etc etc He will be more likely to work hard if that is where hard working children go and get good GCSEs and A levels.

Think very carefully about what Xpatmama88 said.
If having friends is very important to him now, it's likely still to be the case in two or three years time. It's important to most children.

You need to think carefully about what this travelling adventure will involve for your son. Have you planned it out? How long might you be away? Will there be opportunities to enrol him in a school where you are going, and will he be coping with english as a foreign language? Or will language issues meant that his parents would be the only people with whom he can interact on this trip?

I agree with other posters. You need to think very carefully about taking him out of school to travel. He will be in year 8 then and in some schools they start choosing their options for. GCSES at the end of that year. What would happen when you came back? I think your child's education is more important than your DH's plan to travel.