AIBU to want to move to Yorkshire

[PinkSlipperQueen]

Fed up with Surrey and all the people here my mil and her family are all dysfunctional nightmares. I want to move far far away and start over freshere. Is it so wrong to just want to move far away for a better life?

Well I like Surrey and I'm not even contemplating moving to Yorkshire!
I went there once and it was very cold and wet just like Surrey today

Light-hearted joke us Yorkshire folk like to tell:

A tourist arrives in England, determined to see as many places as possible. He starts his sightseeing in London, taking in a visit to St Pauls Cathedral and whilst there he sees a golden telephone on the wall with a sign underneath. £10,000 per minute.
So he asks the vicar why the phone call is soooo expensive, to which the vicar replies
'ahh, my child, it is a direct line to God and so the price reflects this'

The tourist continues on his travels up the country and each church he visits, he sees this golden telephone and the same sign - £10,000 per minute.

Until, that is, he reaches York Minster. There he comes across the golden telephone but the sign underneath states '50p per minute'
The tourist is puzzled by this huge discrepancy in price so stops the archbishop to ask him about it.

'I have been travelling this land and everywhere I have been the price for the call has been £10,000 per minute. Is this still the direct line to God Archbishop, and if it is, why is it so cheap'
To which the Archbishop replied:
'Ahh, sunshine, but you're in Yorkshire now so it's a local call'

But seriously, even as someone who loves it here, it will depend on where you go and your reasons for coming as to how successful any move is. There's good/bad everywhere and you can't outrun some problems. Good luck

I don't want to hammer home the point (am from the NE and have relatives in Yorkshire) but it is a new thing and recent survey - we didn't have it when I was young - this academic divide. It's fascinating because presumably IQ should be evenly spread across England.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-34778514

If you have to move north, why not move to Barnet?

Deo - if you think that map represents IQ you need to read in a more analytic way.

It represents academic achievement at one stage of someone's education. It reflects a huge range of other variables which impact on a person's ability to perform specific tasks on a specific day at a specific time.

That map is rubbish. The school I was recently Deputy Head at in the North East gained 75% 5A*-C last summer at GCSE. A neighbouring school gained 76% and another 72%. The local authority next to ours North Tyneside was one of the highest achievng in the whole country.
Whoever linked to it, bugger off down South and stay there.

DD's school is in one of the worst performing LAs in the country and acheived 70%, 80% and 72% 5A*-C including English and maths in the last three years. Her school is oversubscribed.

I'm a Londoner, but it's crazy to suggest children will do worse at school in Yorkshire. How ridiculous! I assume there are good, bad and middling schools, just like in the South. I wouldn't move back North now because of the weather (am from the wetter, other side of the Pennines) but Yorkshire looks gorgeous. The schools certainly wouldn't put me off.

I've lived all over, including London, and currently in Harrogate for the last 10 years or so. My kids went to secondary school here, then uni. I don't intend to move ever again :)

Its a bit of an anomaly as its more expensive than the surrounding areas, but still much, much cheaper then down south. It has a really bad traffic problem on the Skipton road (busiest A road outside London - hence the no letting people in)

A lot of people live here and commute to work, also a lot of people live in Leeds or nearby and come to work in town.

Schools are excellent, pretty much all of them. It's really pretty and people are friendly. It also feels very safe compared to many other similar sized towns.

As many people don't leave they often already have a social network in place and it can feel harder to make proper friends if you are new - compared to other places where you have a lot of people coming or going. But it is possible to make friends, it just takes a bit longer. I felt much more out of it in London.

Its a good place for families with school age children, not so good for singles or young couples who are looking for a thriving social life. If I was single/younger I'd live in York or Leeds - but they are cities - I prefer towns.

I've lived in York for 20 years. I adore it here. Come North OP, you won't regret it.

I moved to Yorkshire from Newcastle in my early 20s. I am 40 in May and no intentions of leaving Yorkshire. Really is a lovely place to live but maybe I am a tad biased.

everyone should move to yorkshire it's lovely and the houses cost a ton less and everyone is friendly.

Shhh don't tell everyone.

Lulujakey1 and bunbaker
Do these schools have really challenging intakes because otherwise I'm not exactly blown away by 20 to 25% of pupils failing to get five basic GCSEs.

"otherwise I'm not exactly blown away by 20 to 25% of pupils failing to get five basic GCSEs."

It is totally unrealistic to expect 100% of students to achieve 5 good GCSEs. The only schools I know that do that have a selective intake (and are fee paying).

DD's school is a comprehensive one with a range of students that reflects the academic and not so academic capabilities of its intake.

otherwise I'm not exactly blown away by 20 to 25% of pupils failing to get five basic GCSEs

The average is about 56% scoring 5 GCSEs at A*-C. 100% is the preserve of highly selective grammar and independent schools.

As a parent looking at schools, I would consider any comprehensive school getting over about 65% as very good - over 70% as extremely good indeed.

9th in the Olympic medals, home of Betty's, finest folk in the world. What are you waiting for?

Dh and I are toying with moving from Sussex up to Yorkshire or even somewhere like Cumbria within a few years. Dh lived near Sheffield as a teen and loved it.
We live in Sussex and we pay gazillions for our not particularly big house, the schools are overcrowded and not that great, people are largely stuck up as its so wealthy where we are. If it wasn't for my dm and dhs parents in Kent we would be gone. It's beautiful, cheaper and we could both get work without too much trouble. Yanbu

There are some excellent primary and secondary schools in Yorkshire. And (dare one say it) some schools that aren't as target obsessed as some in the south east.

I would move back to Yorkshire in a heartbeat. In fact, I tend to spend most of my weekends driving up and down the A1 visiting friends as the area I moved to is in Godforsakenland, rather than Godsownland. Yorkshire is a huge county so think very carefully about where you'd like to live, transportation, community, facilities etc. The villages in North Yorkshire tend to be more wary of "incomers", the towns are more friendly, however. And anywhere in East Yorkshire is fine - Hull is on the up but you'd need to look at Sirius Academy or South Hunsley schools as your secondary school choices. Good luck OP!

The villages in North Yorkshire are fab!

Not at all. Yorkshire is awesome. It's a really nice place to live. Like everywhere there are some shitty places to avoid but you would be able to find somewhere lovely at a cheaper price than the south, (I guess, I don't know about Surrey prices).

You'll be made to feel more welcome than you would have been 30 years ago. But on another level - you'll never truly belong. My husband is a Southerner living in a North Yorks village and there is a level on which he will always be an outsider. My family are in this parish and the surrounding ones since the first page of the parish records. You can't buy that like you can buy a house.

I blame that bloody idiot James Herriot.

If you can get jobs up here, then I don't see why you couldn't move. I've lived in W Yorks all my life, it's generally friendly and unarguably cheaper than living in Surrey. It is colder/damper up here though by a good few degrees.

You can't run away from family but sometimes putting a physical distance between you and them, can help imo.

I agree that if you move to a village it can be hard to feel oroperly 'accepted'. My friend has moved from Leeds to a small village a few miles away and although she and her DH are involved in a lot of local groups/activities/committees etc, she doesn't feel as if she is 'one of them' yet. She's lived there for about 5 or 6 years. But saying that, there are more pro's than cons and apart from the dreary weather, I like being here.

"some schools that aren't as target obsessed as some in the south east."

I doubt that very much in the secondary sector. DD's school is ofsted good and the head is desperate to get an outstanding. They are desperate to improve on their 72% 5 A* - C inc Eng and maths GCSEs.