Wanting to move to a better area, but our eldest is in Year 9 and settled

[LolB85]

Hi All

We are really struggling on what to do. We have fallen in love with Horsham and really want to move there. The problem is our eldest in in Year 9, is happy there and doing reasonably well results wise - still lots of room for improvement but is going in the right direction.

We are just concerned about whether moving to Horsham while our eldest is in Year 9 and doing fine is going to have a negative impact on him. Ideally to do the move we would want our children to move schools, however I am also contemplating keeping them at their respective schools and driving the extra 40 mins to get them to school for the next 2.5 yrs so he can stay where he is??

How would the travelling work with getting the others to school?

When he starts GCSEs, will there be requirement for activities or lessons after school?

What is the traffic likely to be like?

Most importantly, what does he feel about moving, leaving friends?

If you keep him until GCSEs end, you are delaying the date that he has to leave his friends. What would you do if he wanted to stay at his current school for Sixth Form or wanted to go to the same college as his friends? You could be doing it until he’s finished year 13 and there’s no guarantee that he’d pass his driving test first time meaning that he could drive himself.
Is the 40 minutes in rush hour traffic? Is he able to get up earlier and does he accept that his social life won’t be the same as you cant drive him up
see friends for short social trips like a wander to McDonalds for some nuggets?
It will be sad to leave friends and there are plenty of people who do a 40 minute commute to school each way (eg private and grammar students) but it’s going to be tough on him when he can’t be as spontaneous as local kids.
I think that your choices are to move summer of his year 11 (it’s not like year 7/reception where address matters ) or move now (but check schools in Horsham start GCSEs in year 10 rather than year 9)

How old is the younger child? Are they secondary aged and likely to want to stay at current school until year 13?