Moving to Hertfordshire

[Nowfindingdory]

We currently live in Bromley and thinking of moving to Hertfordshire possibly next year when the eldest has finished his gcse with the hope to join a local school for sixth form.

Ive heard good things about st Albans and harpenden and really want an area where there are good schools as do not plan to move again. We are thinking next year would be a great year to move as the eldest would have just finished year 11 and my dd will be going into year 3 with the youngest due to start school the following year. The plan would be for the youngest to go to the same school the oldest goes.

I don't know much about st albans or harpenden and really want to know more about the area, is it family friendly, multi cultural with close amenities. Don't want to be having to walk miles for the nearest shops. From previous threads ive read, roundwood park and st georges are good schools but are there any secondary schools that you would avoid as well as primary. Do sixth form have catchments in the state school. We are only considering state schools. Although it is too soon to say whether my girls would be academic enough for grammer school but it is something i may consider when the time comes although i do prefer them to go to a good local school without having journeys commuting to and from school.

[Zodlebud]

St Albans and Harpenden are far from multi-cultural. They are predominantly white middle class, highly educated and open minded. Many people move out of London to these towns so you get the sort of mindset and cultural vibe.

[terrifictoddlers]

Harpenden is a very very pretty town with good schools, but house prices are ridiculous! (or at least were a couple of years ago, and I expect still rising) Harpenden very family friendly. It's a very rich area. It is more banker and celeb rich, than academic. I never quite felt I fitted in (lots of nannies or v rich stay home mums on the young child scene) so in the end (given sense of not suited to us, and expensive houses) we decided to buy elsewhere, where it was cheaper and we fitted in better.

Re St Albans - it has a great reputation and loads of people rave about it. I never really got it. Large town, a bit grim in places, not my bag! Harpenden's poorer and larger cousin I'd say. That said, it is family friendly, and again I've heard there are some good schools

Both Harpenden and St Albans have excellent, fast train links to London. If I had to live in one or other, would choose Harpenden over St Albans by miles.

[terrifictoddlers]

Ps forgot to say, when we were looking into it, for primary at least, the catchments to the best schools were very small! and house prices within best catchments were very high!! :)

[Nowfindingdory]

Thanks for commenting zodlebug and terrifictoddlers. Well we are far from Rich or famous. Schools and catchments are issues everywhere. Even where we live we have some as small as 0.1, literally need to live by the enterance to get in. Majority of spaces swallowed up my siblings. We really want to move out of London somewhere where schools are good bjt also somewhere where we wont feel out of place. By these descriptions im not sure if this is a place that would d really suit us.

[GivenupontheGarden]

I wouldn't say someone who isn't white would feel out of place in Saint Albans, might be a bit more fidgety in Harpenden. . Please don't let that comment put you off.

[alibubbles]

St Albans has a large Italian community, and Irish community, Bangladeshi and Asian community. We have 2 synagogues, 2 mosques, and may churches of all faiths. I don't think it is particularly White middle class!

All the taxi drivers are asian! We have a lot of Polish, Romanian, Slovakian families, all well settled with children in school too, and the next set of cleaners all seem to be Bulgarian or Brazilian!

Yes, there are a lot of young professional who commute into London, hence having 38 day nurseries all mostly full too. I think St Albans is nice than Harpenden, easier to make friends, and not so narrow minded.

We have fantastic school, state and private, but you will need to live 300 yards or less from your preferred school, 185 to be precise if wanting Maple where there were 21 sibling s for 30 places this year.

The only thing we really lack is a decent hospital service, no A&E for 10 miles and them you wouldn't choose Watford unless you had no choice.

Lots of parks and open spaces, masses on for families at the weekends too.

It is pricey and not many houses on the market either, everyone is having massive extensions!

St Albans is great!

[Zodlebud]

So OP, the above description of a multi-cultural city including "all the taxi drivers are Asian" and "the next set of cleaners being Bulgarian or Brazilian" should illustrate my point entirely.

Have you considered Hitchin? Great schools, lovely town and definitely worth a look.

[mellicauli]

If you look [[http://www.stalbans.gov.uk/community-and-living/communityprofile/wardprofiles/ here]] you'll see that some wards are quite a bit less white than Average (e.g. Cunningham, London Colney). Others less so.
St Albans is quite a liberal place, I think you'd be made to feel welcome if you wanted to join in wherever you are from.

[missminimum]

We live locally to Harpenden and St Albans and I would say it's a happy area to live. We moved away and moved back especially because of the friendliness, good schools and commute to London. House prices are really high though! St Albans is larger and has a more diverse population. Harpenden is smaller and probably more expensive to buy in.I find Harpenden very friendly when I go there to shop etc. All the secondary schools in Harpenden are very good. I think the ones in St Albans are too, but don't know as much about them. I think that most of the primary schools are very good. You would have to move close to a school of choice to help your chances of getting in. If you move and your children are already in school and not due to commence in reception or Year 7, it is likely that all the schools will be full and over subscribed. When you apply, the local authority is then likely to allocate you a place at tne nearest school that has places, so that could be outside Harpenden or St Albans. You can the appeal to try to get a school more locally. Good luck with your decision.