Teddington/Kingston/East Molsey/Twickenham?!

[Hellope]

We're looking to move from Richmond to a 4 bed still in a lovely part of SW London but where we can afford a decent 4 bed.

We have 2 DC aged 4 and 2 so schools v important

Does anyone live in these places/would you recommend? We are struggling to decide on an area, particularly because there doesn't seem to be too much on the market so it's not that easy to see what kinds of properties are available. We have a budget of 1.2.

Any advice would be gratefully received!

Not on your list but we are in New Malden and absolutely love it. Great schools (Tiffin, Coombs Girls, Kingston Grammar) and facilities. £1.2m would get you a lot here.

North Kingston (KT2). Catchment for 4 outstanding primaries and an outstanding secondary. Catchments quite small though so you need to check before you buy! River, Richmond Park, shopping..Still pretty expensive but you could get a nice 4 bed for that budget. Or extend a cheaper 3 bed. Teddington is gorgeous but I don't know much about schools. If I didn't live in North Kingston I'd chose Teddington out of your list.

Twickenham is on a quicker line to Waterloo, if that’s a consideration. Twickenham, Teddington and Kingston all have outstanding primaries just choose you location wisely as catchments are small. Twickenham also has an outstanding comprehensive for secondary.

I would think carefully about secondary schools - I know your children are young atm, but Teddington is currently a bit of a black hole for good state schools.

Like PP say, catchment areas can be quite small too. If you're Catholic there might be a few more options if you're willing for your children to travel to school for secondary.

I would look at schools then work out a radius for the current catchment areas. As a comparison (using progress 8 as a measure):

Tiffin girls 1.21
St Mark's boys Catholic 0.88
Tiffin boys 0.78
Waldegrave girls 0.78
Salesian Catholic 0.7
Coombs girls 0.62
Hinckley Wood 0.59
Orleans Park 0.3
Teddington -0.02
Esher high -0.2

There's quite a big range at secondary. I'm not so au fait with Kingston I'm afraid & if you're willing to pay for education it may be less of an issue.

Primary feeders can have incredibly small catchment areas though!

Good luck!

There are many Outstanding primary schools in teddington; my daughters attend st James primary, they are many others.
A Secondary outstanding state school which my eldest attend is st Richard Reynolds in twickenham.
I hope this helps.