School search saga

Who would have thought finding a school for your child would be so stressful. It is a minefield and not to be taken lightly. I must admit it is our own fault. Unlike many more organised parents who know which school their offspring will be going to long before they are born, the better half and I have been completely lax. Due in part, in our defence, to having three children in three and a half years.

Now we are frantically searching for the best schools in our area for our daughter to attend. We have trawled Ofsted a million times, seeking out inspection scores, cross referencing one school against another, organising school visits, analysing school performance tables and on and on and on. For primary school league tables click here.

The deadline is just over two weeks away and we have to list six schools we would like her to go to. Of these there are only three we are remotely interested in, and only one of those is our 'we desperately need her to get into this school', school. Well there was another marginally better one, but we live outside of that school's catchment area. Yes catchment areas. Read up on those, because they add yet another layer of frustration I'm afraid. We are going to have to put in some heavy duty prayer time to ensure the good Lord works this one out for us.

The moral of the story? Ensure you carry out plenty of research in plenty of time when it comes to your child's schooling. Maybe this is a no brainer for many more organised parents, but for us it sort of crept out of nowhere. A sorry excuse but a true one nonetheless.