The East Midlands

[weekfour]

We're looking at an impending move to the East Midlands for work. It's looking like the office is likely to be in Mansfield and we'd like to be within 90 minutes commute by car.

My daughter currently attends an excellent comp which I'm really torn about leaving. She didn't sit an 11+ because it's not relevant where we live at the moment. I'm after some help finding where the good schools are.

We're currently in a relatively expensive part of Greater Manchester and am hoping we'll be able to get a bit more house for our money too. Looking for a 4 bed house with space for two people to WFH. I'm happy for us to share an office.

Hit me with your recommendations of areas to visit. Good schools, don't mind being rural-ish but need decent supermarket relatively close and decent shopping with 45 mins. We like cycling and dog walking. A nice pub would be a bonus!!

Definitely ignore the Ofsted inadequate report for Ecclesbourne. It's a slightly snobby school in a white middle class area so there has always been the usual element of unkind/snide remarks (between the haves and have nots) and also a lack of diversity. However, reports of bullying are overblown. It is not a rough school. The children are generally great, well behaved, polite and the quality of teaching and results are generally excellent. At one point it was one of the best state schools in the country and consistently in the best schools guide and Harper and Queen etc. I know plenty of parents who went there as children and have chosen to move back to the area to send their own children there. When I was at school a large proportion made it into Oxbridge every year and I believe that to still be the case.

Although QEGs is a great school, there were definite issues of verbal and physical bullying there back in the day. I cannot comment on what it is like now. A relative attended fairly recently and did well and was very happy there. To clarify, it's a comp and not an actual grammar school, despite its name.

You'll have to look up the catchment for John Port

Catchment usually extends to Etwall, Willington, Findern, Hilton, Hatton and some parts of Mickleover. There is a school bus for those living a certain distance away. It's a good school but has definitely had a lot of issues the last few years with bullying, drugs and some problems with (I think) a previous head teacher.

Yeh John Port not the best rep, also a very big school 2000+ students.

No way would I want to drive from Etwall to Mansfield twice a week at rush hour either.

Better to call it like it is IMO.

I live in the East Midlands and some places are indeed shitholes.

But there are some lovely places too.

A lot of the north Derby villages are well thought of (Duffield, Quardon). Don't know about schools and traffic though. 600k should buy you a decent place.

Grantham has a grammar school. The nearby village of Bottesford is 45 minutes from Mansfield.

Grantham is Lincolnshire though - South Kesteven

Can I join you in the hating junction 28 club? I make work colleagues laugh because of how far I'll go to avoid that junction (it's no biggie really because I usually come off at 27 and just cut through Kirkby if I need to go up to 28)! When I took my current job I was really unsure of the motorway commute (I do M1 Junction 25 up to anywhere from 27 up to about 30 depending on where I'm working that day) - and actually it's been perfectly tolerable to be fair.

Someone mentioned Toton for George Spencer Academy... if you're going on it's previous rep, it's now been downgraded by Ofsted to Good and lots of local parents are desperately trying to avoid it - we were in catchment and have firmly swerved it and gone for less shiny and new looking schools which were smaller and more nurturing (we went for Bramcote College because we liked how the staff interacted with the kids and it's been very good for high-ability but probably autistic and quite anxious and can be challenging in terms of never shutting up DD). It does fit your travel time though - I can be in Mansfield in about 30-40 minutes from junction 25 of the M1 easily (I'm not a heavy-footed driver).

Sheffield may be a good shout as well - fair few colleagues commute to Mansfield from Sheffield. West Bridgford is the usual MN recommendation but I wouldn't want to be commuting from there to Mansfield! Some lovely villages if you're looking out towards the Sherwood Forest area - but I'll be honest that I don't know the schools that well in that area. Factor in transport links as well though - lots of those lovely little villages have bog all in terms of stuff for the kids to actually do unless you're on permanent taxi duty.

Newark - has some real shithole bits, Mansfield and Ashfield have areas of high deprivation (as you'd kind of expect from ex-mining areas).

I went to John port for a short time too (y7/8) and I actually really liked it. It's huge so walking form one lesson to another could take 10 mins. Not to mention a million steps up b block! I don't think I could even do that now. It's a far better school than Thomas alleynes and qegs. Alleynes is where I went after and hated every second of it. Qegs just from friends, I was very glad I didn't go there and a lot of Ashbourne kids went to alleynes.