A road too far

There is a school in Colchester that people around here speak of in hushed tones. A legendary school with a one from Ofsted that seems to be the only thing on the minds of most of those with school age children in the surrounding area. So what did we, the most rubbish pushy middle class parents ever, do when moving out of the inner city? We moved to a house one road out of the catchment area.

Conversations with people (lovely people) that I have met since moving here have generally gone:

"You moved here from Hackney? I expect that's because you knew the schools here are really good?"

And my reply is always: "We are one road out of the catchment area of School X".

And their faces change, and they go: "Oh. Well, that other school is really good too. Even though it only got a three. It was very unfair really. I'm still sending mine to school X of course."

We didn't actually move because of the schools, I would have been happy with many of the schools in Hackney as it happens. But possibly we could have thought harder about catchment areas.