How far do you go for education?

[schoolhelp22]

I am stressing about secondary school applications. Our situation; in a county that doesn't do catchment, we have 6 schools to choose from. Our 2 nearest ones are 'outstanding' and incredibly difficult to get into due to lack of catchment rules and admission criteria, 1000 applications to 180 places, they take 50% of places from neighbouring town. After that and sibling link etc there are very few spaces. Infuriating! The second outstanding is equally as popular (although does only take from our town) has an excellent STEM programme and does an engineering GCSE, DS is very keen on engineering/STEM subjects.

We can only make 3 choices, so if we want to put the 2 outstanding down (which I really do, even though it's a lottery- literally, computer selected) we need to tread very carefully with the 3rd choice.

The next best school has amazing data, great reputation, in a beautiful area (much nicer than our town ha) but it doesn't have a 6th form and is £1000 a year on a bus. My son LOVED this school. But we are lower priority for this one due to not going to a feeder school, it's oversubscribed but I do know many kids local to us that go there.

There are 2 mediocre schools that would be much easier to get him to (although not really walking distance). He would get in no problem in the first round of applications (but would struggle if the worst happened and we got the 6th school and wanted to back track). I wouldn't cry if he got one of these, but I'd be disappointed knowing what else is available in the area.

The 6th choice is a horrendous school, special measures, 25% persistent absence. I would be devastated if we got this school.

So my two worries are:

1. If I put the 3 best schools mentioned up the top, they are all oversubscribed and we don't have priority for any of them. We risk getting none of our choices and almost certainly would get the horrendous school. But I don't want to lose an opportunity to get into the 3 top schools if that makes sense, I want us to be in the running for each.
2. This is more personal, but would you pay £100 pcm and send your child to a school 18 miles away to get them a better education? I'm not worried about friends as 35% of the school do actually come from our town, but just worried I'm being a bit of a snob and making life more difficult for myself sending him to a school further away when he will probably do just fine in a mediocre school that is closer. But I feel I should do more for him than a school I think he'll do fine in if that makes sense...but DH and I do have quite stressful careers so equally don't want to make our lives too difficult.

I think I just needed to get that off my chest, but any thoughts and opinions welcome. Or indeed shared stress from your own situation!

If go 1) Outstanding STEM 2) bus 3) mediocre

If he gets 2 or 3 you can be added to the waiting list for 1 but I would cover myself for the just in case scenario.

@longestlurkerever one of the the mediocre schools is closer than the horrible one but it was the one oversubscribed last year.

@BananaPB that is what I'm seriously considering doing now but feel sick about not putting down the nearest outstanding school, people would kill to get their kids in that school and it seems insane I'm not even trying 🙈 but that's not very rational I know!!

I chair many admission appeal panels each year. The advice to put a school you will definitely get among your preferences is important. If you don't, the risk is that you will get the awful school and be stuck with it. Every year there are a significant proportion of appeals with families in this situation who are really upset. I also hear appeals for Y8 and Y9 for families who have had one or two years in the awful school and it has not worked out OK.

I live in a market town in the Home Counties. Private schools in my area are good but I'm not sure if I would send my child to any. To answer one of your questions, no I would look at either homeschooling fully or view a few different local primary public schools. Be upfront about your preferences from the outset.