Selling house and moving for secondary schools place - second thoughts! Help

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Hi All,

I have sold my house to allow us to move to get my eldest son into a better secondary school come October application time. Before putting the house on the market I was sure it was the right thing to do. Now I am having massive cold feet, just not sure if its the right thing to do. The conveyancing is well under way but I could still pull out I guess. My son only has 2 close friends and I would be taking him away from that friendship group. We have 2 other daughters who will also be moving from their friendship groups too when they move to the same secondary school. I am starting to really question if its all worth it?!

This is the local school
www.find-school-performance-data.service.gov.uk/school/145819/sherburn-high-school

This is the one we are considering moving close to as all my kids can stay in their current primary (its not too far away)
www.find-school-performance-data.service.gov.uk/school/145777/tadcaster-grammar-school

Thanks

Is your current primary a feeder for the new secondary?

Based on recent years' allocations, are you guaranteed to get the new high school?

People who did this locally have just had a horrible shock on allocation day as being in catchment but not at a feeder primary was not a high enough category to get a space at their preferred school. So they have gone through all the pain and hassle of moving for that reason alone but still not secured the allocation they were hoping for

I wouldn't move for the difference between those schools - the progress 8 scores are basically identical. Unless you have local knowledge about specific issues or there are subjects offered at one school and not the other, I'm not sure I'd bother. The schools are even part of the same trust.

Like a pp, some people round here got a shock this year as admissions were very tight. If you are moving, you really need to understand the admission criteria to ensure you actually will get in if you move!

I would never move just for a school, what if you don’t get a place or the school is not as good as you thought/deteriorates?
Its also putting a lot on a child that you uprooted everyone for them, especially if they don’t want to move

There are no feeder schools around here, its all catchment area based. So if we do move into the catchment we would have a good chance of getting in.

I think in the latest results the school had a good year but looking at A level results and previous years there seems to be a big difference. Sherburn has never had a good reputation although parents have said it has got better recently the other one has always had a good reputation for being a better school.

Those schools have almost identical results, is there another reason for this? Seems absurd

We did it the other way round.
Purely by chance, we had a very strong likelihood of getting into one of 2 catchment schools. Kids were given a free choice on order. Both chose the catchment 5 miles away (rathercthan the one you could seefrpm the end of the road!) and so we moved the summer before DS2 started secondary.
Do you stand a chance of your prefered school from your current address?
Don't worry about friendship groups - it all changes in Y7. If the house you are buying is right, and not a massive compromise, it will e fine.

It's a hell of a lot of pressure on your children to be happy at that particular school.

I don't think the schools look massively different, based on the data. Have you looked round them?

Have to found a house you like

There would have to be a huge difference in the quality of schools to make me want to move house.

Agree with others Op, what is your reason for preferring the favoured school? If it’s data, there’s not much difference - profess 8 for the current school is very good.

If it’s the vague “local reputation” hummm. Not a driver for me.

Have you looked round them? Did the preferred one have better pastoral care, subject offer, atmosphere?

Is the new house a better fit?

i wouldn’t worry tho about friends in secondary, groups are often quite fluid.

We have looked around them both, just prefer the other one. All the data says its better too, GCSE results, A level results. Subjects offered, students getting into oxbridge etc.

We are moving for the house as well, the house we have found is bigger and more suited to us but it is meaning a big mortgage which will affect what we can do in terms of holidays etc and we just won't have disposable income anymore - I think thats my concern too.

Very very slim chance. Looking at the stats some people got in back in 2019/2020 but not since.

I'm sorry but with how things are in terms of cost of living etc, you are bloody crazy to do this.
Your children can move for sixth form. You couldn't pay me to move house right now to a bigger property which would leave me with no disposable income.

how old are your daughters?

I thought you were going to be moving from a requires improvement to an outstanding or something - which I would definitely do. But it looks like they've really turned the local school around and it's really improved - behaviour was good previously which always helps, but there's probably a new head and it sounds like a really good one that has been able to make sure the teachers and governors are doing what they should. I think you'd be fine to stay - and I would if that is your only reason for moving.

Sherburn has never had a good reputation although parents have said it has got better recently the other one has always had a good reputation for being a better school.

We had to move area and couldn't afford the best catchment and would have made commute even longer - so picked a school that seemed to have massively turned round was having improving results.

Two years after eldest started the head that made all the improvements left and it's been on a depressing downwards spiral ever since affecting her and our younger children.

It's really let them down and past week poor communication around a minor issue has cause huge stress to us and frankly I'm even more worried.

Love the house love the area but the school massive let down and while they can do A-level elsewhere it's been a long time for them at it and I do think it's negatively impacted their GCSE grades and options they got offered. Plus many outside groups have negatively pre judged our kids because of the school's reputation - which was a nasty surprise to us.

So I don't think you are made to make a slightly better bet and move though I would factor in the cost of living increases.

The schools seem almost identical except 1 has a much older ofsted of 2017 so id expect a visit from them soon.
That said none of us have local knowledge to draw on.

We were in a similar situation to you about 4 years ago when dd1 was due to start secondary school. We had the house up for sale and nearly had an offer agreed. Unfortunately, it was too low for us to be able to afford a similar size house in the new area, without taking on a much bigger mortgage, which we couldn't really afford. So we didn't move in the end.

Fast forward to the pandemic and dh is made redundant as his whole industry implodes. We now have even less income than we did before and are so glad we didn't move house and get ourselves mortgaged up to the eyeballs with no life.

And we are a couple who place utmost importance on education (being a teacher myself and dh coming from a family of teachers). The upheaval just wasn't worth it in the end as the school dd1 has ended up going to really isn't that much worse (if at all) compared to the one we really wanted her to go to.

I would say weigh up everything very carefully and make sure you're not compromising too far in favour of education at the detriment of all else in your lives.

i would be concerned that there is no guarantee of getting into the new school even by moving. What happens if there are more applicants in catchment than spaces? I am guessing the oversubscription criteria would be distance so surely there’s still a risk isn’t there?