Would you move house to get into a catchment area?

[Supersonic]

My daughter is currently in Y4 and she'd like to sit 11+ test next summer. She's started some extra tuition however I am trying to be realistic and understand the immense competition she'll be up against to gain a place at one of the K/E schools. In an effort to plan ahead we have taken the decision to move to Selly Oak to increase our chances of getting a place for her at the new University of Birmingham School ( we will be approx 400 metres away!). We don't like the idea of my daughter having so much pressure on her to pass the test and hope our decision means that she'll stand the best chance of getting into a great school whether she passes her K/E 11+ entrance test or not. I'm interested to hear if anyone else has done anything like this or is considering it.

[muminbrum]

A friend of mine did this as her ds was getting very worried about 11 plus so they withdrew him and moved and he starts in September. We plan to move house soon and might well look in this area so we have a backup for ds3 & ds4. When I bought my current house I had no kids or thoughts of them but lucked out with primaries but comps are a disaster.

[Supersonic]

Muminbrum - thanks for the reply. Like you we were lucky and got the children in to a lovely primary school however we're not so keen on the choices of secondary in our area. The new University school is a risk as it's not even open but I've done lots of research and the outlook looks positive. Just keeping our fingers crossed that we're making the right choice.

[FunkyMonkey]

Absolutely, yes. We are from Wolverhampton and we made plans to move to Sutton as my son had an offer from Bishop Vesey two years ago.

We were going to do so to let his brother have a better chance for a good local comprehensive.

Fortunately, we had a better offer and did not need to move in the end, but it was actually quite exciting to move to a new area.

[HappyRobot]

Yes I would, but the only issue is that it costs more to move into a good catchment area.

House prices in Solihull seem high for the West Mids as there are great schools there, so I would consider instead moving to the Uni school's catchment, if housing is more reasonable, especially as the ex-head of Camp Hill will be running it.

[JaneM]

I'm afraid I would consider that too much of a gamble. The University School is a totally unknown quantity. It could be fantastic, or it could be fantastic in 5 or 6 years once it is properly established, or it could have a lot of teething problems. Having Mike Roden running it is no guarantee of anything as Camp Hill was already a thriving, extremely successful school with a strong ethos when he took the headship there and crucially it also had, already in place, a very stable team of experienced and committed teachers. Starting a new school from scratch is a very different challenge. Good luck to him and I hope it turns out to be great - goodness knows we need more good non-selective choices in Birmingham - but I wouldn't (and didn't) make that gamble with our DS as guinea pig.

A good comp with a solid reputation such as several in Solihull and Sutton would be a much safer bet, I'd have thought, but I read on another thread of a family moving to a house that was in catchment last year only to find popularity/birth rate had increased and they couldn't get their child into the first preference school anyway. What a nightmare!

[Supersonic]

Thanks to you all for your comments. It is definitely such a huge decision and we are just trying to do the best thing for our daughter. JaneM, I completely appreciate your views as this was my main concern tbh. As a teacher myself I'm well aware that it takes schools years to become established and settle in. Fortunately my daughter will be in the 3rd cohort of intake (hopefully a little better). I also considered that a change in headship at an established school can have a negative impact on the success of a school. It's a risk either way isn't it?

[muminbrum]

If we had a blank slate without needing to consider commute to work and other children already at Gs, I'd move to Sutton as you have the option of grammar and good comps as backup. You even have an easy commute to kes/kehs if you can afford it after buying a house in Sutton

[JaneM]

I agree with muminbrum. Sutton covers all the bases, i think some of the catchments are pretty tight for the comps though so you'd have to be careful with your location. Looking back I think I was pretty naive when I started on this journey. If I had understood the system, the stress and what it takes to get into the GSs I think we may well have moved to alleviate the pressure. And on paper Sutton Coldfield would be the best place to be.

I am very relieved that, with boys in yr10 and yr6 now we are out the other side and worrying about how we will pay for university!