I took a £100,000 gamble to save my daughter’s education

On Monday, I did something that thousands of other parents did: I dropped my first born off for her first day of secondary school.

It was a moment I’d been planning for seven years. In that time I uprooted my family (including my mum), moved more than 20 miles from my home town and spent over £100,000 all to ensure that my daughter Macy got into the best school possible.

As I snapped a picture of her in her new school uniform outside the school gates that morning, I felt like it was all worth it. 

The late nights, the longer commute to work, the money, the tears, it had all been worth it just to see her smile as she begins this new chapter.

And I’m not alone in taking such action. According to research by Santander, many parents like me are making sacrifices to ensure their children attend the best school.

Some 14% of parents have chosen to rent a second property in a different school catchment area, while 17% have gone one step further to buy a second home to ensure their child has the best choice of schools.

As for me? I fall into the category of parents who would move up to 30 miles and pay up to 15% more for a home in a different catchment area. And I don’t regret it for a second.

Before I had kids, I’d never paid attention to the ‘nearest schools’ tab on Right Move. Back then, I was more concerned with having a house on a good commuter line to London.

But as soon as Macy was born in 2014 I began to think differently.

While there were plenty of good primary schools to choose from where we lived at the time – and we practically had our pick of where she could go – when I looked to the future I got nervous.

With only four secondary schools serving the whole area, I worried Macy, and later her younger brother Sidney, would end up getting lost in the crowd.

I felt a pressure to begin planning sooner than later, so I asked friends with older kids for advice. 

All of them said the same thing: consider moving to a different area where the catchment pool is much smaller, do my research and find a school I believed Macy could excel in.

I did initially try to find somewhere in the local area, and I considered private school too, but nothing seemed to tick all my boxes and private school presented other challenges.

So, by the time Macy started reception in September 2018, I’d decided that the area and school I liked most was a mixed comprehensive faith school in Kent.

However, I wasn’t quite ready to uproot our lives just yet – thinking we had years to prepare.

That’s when my mum intervened. ‘You’re better off doing it now rather than later,’ she said, rightly pointing out that Macy wouldn’t remember her reception years and that, if I waited until she was in Year Six, as was my plan, it might be more challenging.

Heeding her advice we began to search more seriously and by April 2019 we’d bought a new house in Kent – where house prices are on average 58%* higher than where we had been living. 

We sold our old house but on top of the proceeds from that, we forked out a further £100,000 to buy a property less than a mile from the school. That move also added £30 to my daily commute.

In the years that followed life had its fair share of ups and downs: we welcomed a third child, Leo, in December 2020, however, two years after that, my husband and I separated. 

I hadn’t anticipated taking on a bigger, more expensive house alone. It was tough. There were many moments when I wondered whether I’d done the right thing in moving. My commute and work hours were longer, and, as I’d essentially alienated myself from my support network in pursuit of better education for my children, I felt like I was completely alone at times.

All I could do was cling to the hope it’d all be worth it if Macy got into our dream school.

And that’s the thing, it was still an if. There were no guarantees she would get into the school I’d chosen even if we did live less than a mile away. 

Come National Offer Day in March this year though, Macy and I got the news we’d been waiting for – she was in!

By then she was as excited as I was, especially as a number of friends she’d made at primary school would also be attending. To her, she knows no different, but the relief I felt that my risk had paid off was immense.

And seeing her in her blazer on Monday? Worth every agonising moment.

Plus, it’s hugely satisfying to know that, if Sidney and Leo want to go to that school too (and I sincerely hope they do!), it should be slightly easier now. 

Is there a part of me that wishes I hadn’t had to move? Of course. I wouldn’t have done this if the schools in my original area ticked all my boxes. 

But the reality is they didn’t and unfortunately there is a divide when it comes to education standards.

I wish it were an even playing field, that every child got the same high level of education no matter where they grow up, but that’s not the world we live in, and I won’t apologise for adapting my life to give my kids the education and future I want them to have.

I know I’m fortunate that I had the financial means and job security to make this move work for my family, but to those that will argue I’ve gone too far, I say this: when it comes to setting my children up for the best future possible, there’s no length I won’t go to.

As told to Emma Rossiter

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

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