Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Do people REALLY move house to get into a good school?

281 replies

Ijustwanttoretire · 28/08/2019 09:23

Apparently 'The average house value in England is £247,000 but parents face taking on loans of up to £180,000 more to live near a top-rated school.' Really? Does your average family move house to get into a better senior school? £180000 would buy a decent house where I live, let alone paying that much extra to get into a good catchment area. So how many MNers have ACTUALLY done this?

OP posts:
CherryPavlova · 29/08/2019 16:19

Most people who go to good schools end up depressed anxious or on drugs
I’m afraid that’s twaddle. The biggest indicator of future mental health problems is poverty. High education achievement protects against mental health problems and is likely to do so long term because with good academic results you are less likely to be very poor.

Schools in challenging communities such as Great Yarmouth, Hastings, Leigh, Bury, Bridgend and Margate are much, much more likely to have children with significant mental health problems , delinquency and substance abuse than say Tiffins, Henrietta Barnett, Keswick School or Peter

lilyj13 · 29/08/2019 16:54

What a load of rubbish!

JacquesHammer · 29/08/2019 17:06

Look on the daily mail that girl who went to a 13,000 a term private school ended having the schools Moto tattooed across her chest covered all over her body

Notwithstanding the fact you’re using the Daily Mail as a reputable news source, tattoos don’t equal lack of a worthwhile education.

Most people who go to good schools end up depressed anxious or on drugs!

Could you share the stats you’ve seen please, I’d be interested to read.

SnuggyBuggy · 29/08/2019 17:08

Also things tend to be newsworthy because they are unusual

onefootinthegrave · 29/08/2019 17:18

I think the idea of using your child (and their education) to "uplift" a failing school is pretty distasteful actually

I find the idea of parents moving house to put their kids in a supposed better school at the expense of thousands of kids who will suffer if they do so even more distasteful.

If it’s so awful to move for school, perhaps everyone should look up the crime stats of their area, find the worst bit and move there. Go and become part of the solution, yeah?

Not the same, and you know it. I don't think you're an idiot, as you also wrote. And there are massive problems with the education system. But I get so fed up of people who move out of an area to get their kids into a supposed wonderful school, when the local one could be just as wonderful if people didn't do that. So many of my son's friends from nursery moved schools when it got to either juniors or secondary and a lot of it was snobbery - the local secondary school that had the worst name was the one my son went to. It wasn't perfect but it was nowhere near how it had been portrayed. My SEN son excelled academically there - and I think a lot o the parents who mortgaged themselves to the hilt to get their kids into to a better school needn't have bothered, their kids could have done just as well as my son did.

SoyDora · 29/08/2019 17:22

I currently live in a village where there is very little movement in or out. It’s also a fairly affluent area. The secondary school is still dire. Poor facilities, no extra curricular activities etc. Exam results are generally good, but there’s more to a school being good than its exam results.
We’ll be moving for secondary.

lilyj13 · 29/08/2019 17:32

@JacquesHammer I don't have to give you stats,
I'm not saying setting your child to the top god school is an awful thing to do but I think kids shouldn't be pushed into a school just because their parents are pushy, I know so many children who suffer from depression because all the parents do is push and push maybe show them it's ok to not be the best and be the best at what they have god rather then what they haven't...

All about moving house to get into a good school is a joke! What I'm saying is it doesn't matter what school you go to.
Using the daily mail..... clearly as it was stated the other day how pissed off the father was, I wouldn't hirer a girl who stuck tattoos all over her body with her school Moto.
Parents really moving house putting your family home on the market to get your kid into a better school is bloody selfish!

Anyway!! It's my opinion we all don't agree on everything.

lilyj13 · 29/08/2019 17:34

@CherryPavlova oh dear! Tragic you think that!

Kazzyhoward · 29/08/2019 17:35

What I'm saying is it doesn't matter what school you go to.

Of course it matters.

JacquesHammer · 29/08/2019 17:41

I don't have to give you stats

I.e “it’s my own baseless assertion I can’t back up”.

Gotcha.

CherryPavlova · 29/08/2019 17:45

@ lilyj13 Tragic? To consider evidence as a reasonable basis for opinion? It’s tragic that it’s the case, tragic children are living in poverty that has such a negative impact, it’s true.

FAQs · 29/08/2019 17:52

Yes which is rather handy, I live in a catchment area of a top 5 state primary school for our county school which leads to the local Grammars school with a good success rate.

The school was tiny when I moved here many years ago and has grown hugely since, it’s oversubscribed so only a few streets are in the ‘crows fly’ catchment inc mine.

I say handy as I’m selling next year all helps with value of the house. Although not a huge monetary rise in value (nowhere near the stats in the OP) but makes it very sellable.

YobaOljazUwaque · 29/08/2019 17:52

Absolutely this happens. The price difference can be even steeper if all the houses in the vicinity of the top performing school are also nicer than the ones elsewhere.

Our house is an ex council 3 bed redbrick 1930s semi in the catchment area of a pretty awful comp with grim results and the house is worth about £235k. The cheapest 3 bed house in the vicinity of the best decent state school nearby would be £500k but for that we would get something splendid and Victorian with high ceilings and much larger rooms. Which would be lovely but it would actually be cheaper to pay 7 years of private school fees for 2 kids than it would be to move into the catchment area for the better state school.

BackforGood · 29/08/2019 18:06

Another who was going to say I'm more amazed that you are so shocked, although you saying this The town where I live all the senior schools (4) are all similar standard - so not sure how far we would have had to have moved to get an outstanding one! kind of explains it a bit - we all can only talk about our own experience I suppose.
In many (most?) Cities, that isn't going to be the case.
I don't think everyone "moves to get into the right school" but the schools their dc might be able to get in to will affect where they choose to buy in the first instance. Meaning, there doesn't seem to be a flurry of people moving into a street in Yr5 then out again in Yr 7, but houses near schools with a good reputation will be more popular whenever you are buying family homes.

ThisHereMamaBear · 29/08/2019 19:40

Yes! Moved from spacious 4 bed in a run down area to a squashy 2 bed in a good area. Education is so important, i'd rather have a small house and know my children are getting the best possible start

Motherofasleepaphobe · 29/08/2019 20:00

We purposefully moved into an area with a choice of outstanding primary schools (I wasn’t even pregnant when we did this) as knew how important it would be

DH is keen to move property over the next few years but we won’t move out of this area to make sure we’re still in the catchment for local (fab) comp

RedRose55 · 29/08/2019 20:25

Yes. We rented in the catchment area of a good school and a year later bought a house in the catchment area of a great secondary school. Now DD got into a Grammar school 40 miles away (we really liked the school, it’s a great fit for DD). So we sold our house and moved to the other side of London to live close to the school. We really like it here. We’ll be buying next year.

SoyDora · 29/08/2019 20:34

Parents really moving house putting your family home on the market to get your kid into a better school is bloody selfish!

Why selfish?! Confused. People move house for all sorts of reasons. How can moving for better schools be changed considered selfish?
We’ve moved house (and area) with our DC multiple times, for far less ‘important’ reasons than schooling. Does that make us massively selfish?!

pikapikachu · 29/08/2019 20:40

Parents really moving house putting your family home on the market to get your kid into a better school is bloody selfish!

Someone's got to live near the good schools? Why not a family whose children will attend the school?
Tbh I don't know why a parent who can afford to move wouldn't consider the local schools?

YogaDrone · 29/08/2019 20:42

We did. We didn't get offered any school for primary (ended up having to open a free school) and knew we'd have the same problem at secondary. Moved last year, got our first choice secondary. DS starts year 7 next week.

Three other families in our area have done the same.

RedRose55 · 29/08/2019 20:50

We did too. We considered local school. The school 40miles away was a better fit for DD. So we moved.

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 29/08/2019 20:55

They definitely do around here, since there are some very good primaries and two top-tier grammar schools. The schools factor has definitely affected house prices, in what is anyway a relatively expensive area of outer SW London..

heartboxes · 29/08/2019 21:16

Yes. I wanted to move out of my area because the local school was a dump, no one spoke English to the extent my dd would have been in the minority with English as her only language. Because of the cultural differences and language barriers between all the different nationalities teachers struggled to keep up the syllabus with all the dc and it was also the dumping ground for sen dc from the outstanding school up the road. That last bit pissed me off as well because the outstanding school was helped by the fact that when prospective parents looks round they were openly told Sen may struggle to keep up with there top 30 schools says results.
Anyway we tried to move and failed to in time for catchment admissions deadlines so went private. Think the state system needs a massive shake up that people have to do this just to get a good education for their dc.

GreenFieldsofFrance · 29/08/2019 21:22

In my area people move from one side of the road to the other to put themselves in catchment for the best secondary school. I assume that most, like us, moved here at a time when they weren't even thinking about primary catchment, let alone secondary.

When push comes to shove it would be about £300k to move to a like for like house. We were on the verge of doing it but I couldn't and dh eventually agreed with me.

Plenty are though. Loads of dc's classmates are moving across the road.

TowelNumber42 · 29/08/2019 21:38

We moved to be in the catchment of better schools. Given a choice between spending my money on having bigger living room / better holidays / a fancier car vs accessing a better school for my children then I'd choose my children's education every time.

Swipe left for the next trending thread