Moving to UK: Daily drive to German school

[anjoueva2005]

Guys, We are moving in a relatively short time to the UK and would like to hear you on the foll: The difficulty we are facing is how do we get to the German School in traffic unless we live in Ham itself?

1. how the traffic is if driving kids aged 9 and 5 to the German School from New Malden? we need 3 beds at least to accommodate our furniture and Ham doesn't seem to have much space in the 1750-2000GBP range.
   
2. My husband may work in Hammersmith so that's gotta be factored in but the school run is the most baffling for someone who has never lived in the UK and whose current school is 3 mins on foot.
   
3. I would need to commute to Central London too a couple of times a week so a tube/rail would be nice

[mummytime]

Does the school have a bus service? I wouldn't personally want to be driving in that area at that time of day.
Are there specific reasons you want that school.

[pengymum]

Ham, Kingston or Richmond are best. New Malden is do-able via Richmond Park BUT you can only enter/exit via Kingston Gate from that side, 20 mph speed limit and closes at dusk. If for any reason it is closed, traffic slows down locally, to practically a crawl!
Also Richmond has tube & train station for central London commute. Traffic round this area is pretty grim tbh. Especially this time of year. Fog=jams, rain=jams, bin collection day=jams & so on!
So I would go for local if you can.

[pengymum]

Sorry should have read Ham, North Kingston! Also new school being built on Richmond Rd will mean more traffic & jams on Richmond Rd.

[spica]

Hi anjoueva - we live close to New Malden and our kids go to the same school. There are actually a few other families around, and some (like us)have formed travel groups (i.e. we bring the neighbours kids in the morning, she picks ours up in the evening). It takes about 30 min, but CAN take longer if traffic is bad. The K5 connects New Malden with Ham, IF you are willing to walk part of the way, or you could speak with the organisation managing the school bus, as they may be able to help (there used to be a line which was taken off schedule as there was not enough interest). You could write on the Facebook page for German mums (DML) or join the friends breakfast at the beginning of the school year, as they organise tables by area which helps forming travel groups.