To ask you where to live in the North East

[ShouldistayShouldigo]

I want to start uni at one of the ones around Newcastle or the surrounding areas. (Newcastle/Durham/Northumbria/Sunderland/Teesside).

I'm a mature student with 2 school age DC (4&8). The youngest has additional needs.

I vaguely know the areas, but not well enough to chose somewhere to live. I would just live centrally but i assume that rent prices are crazy the closer to the city you get.

I'm happy to commute. I drive, but would catch the Metro or train for ease if needed. I'd qualify for a council house if anyone could suggest decent housing areas? Or good mainstream schools for kids with EHCP's (childcare plan for special needs).

If someone was moving to where i live, within a certain mile radius i feel like i'd be able to say "oh avoid that school", "that area has a lot of crime", "youre a bit too far on the outskirts if you live at such and such", "that town is dying but this one is doing pretty well". I think that's what i'm looking for if possible! Please feel free to brag about your hometown and lovely upbringings I grew up rurally, but in... what i would nicely call... a shithole. And i don't wan't that for DC. I've known lovely families move to this town/area and i've cringed when they've said where they've moved to (and they've been miserable after).

Or if anyone wants to tell me which uni to avoid or go for that would also be helpful advice! Thank you

The universities you’re listing are so massively different that I can’t see why that’s your list? Teesside is mostly focused on attracting local residents and will accept low grades. You have to be a v good student to get into Durham and most courses at Newcastle. And of course the five universities don’t all do the same courses. So start with what do you want to study, what are your existing qualifications and then choose a university you’re going to get into.

The NE is a big area, someone who knows Teesside well won’t be able to advise you on school quality v house prices in Gosforth.

Agree totally with the above. Even Northumbria has different campuses for different subject areas which may have an impact on where to live.

In terms of which universities to avoid: Avoid Teeside. Avoid Sunderland/Northumbria for certain subjects.

Apparently Teesside is very well
Regarded for engineering degrees. So depends on what you’re doing.

Oops sorry yes i realise that, it was just what kind of fell into my "catchment area" of being within a reachable distance to family after a long time away.

I put such a selection (and chose those ones simply because they're the ones i've heard of) just because i'm not sure where i would get in or where i should aim for. I'm a bit indecisive as you can maybe tell

I didn't realise that Durham and Newcastle were more difficult so that's good to know thank you! I'll hopefully have decent A Levels i'm not finished them yet.

I went to a Northumbria Open Day so any advice around that would be a nice start, but don't want to close my options off if anyone has personal experience of the others.

It would be for the Humanities (i definitely should've put that in my OP sorry!)

I’d agree that you really do need to check which universities offer the course that you’re interested in/realistic entry requirements prior to researching which primary school to avoid, etc.

(More focused on English which is what my grades are mostly in, but not shockingly... i haven't decided an exact course yet)

You're all probably right I think my brain is going 100 miles an hour with it all and i've been over-worrying about getting housing and moved in/settled etc.

Well Sunderland are closing half their Humanities courses, so that’s out. Are you on track for A*/As? That’s what you’d need for Durham and Newcastle.

I'm a current student at Sunderland uni. Lots of changes going on with history and politics courses being dropped. Also three of the English staff are leaving thus year and there's no word on replacements yet.

If you PM me I'm happy to talk about my experience at the uni. Just don't want to do it publicly in case it outs me. 😂

I'm in the NE, it depends what you're looking for, budget etc.

Everywhere is commutable but it depends on time, money etc.

Oh, and I'd suggest taking advice on Teesside from people who can spell it correctly.

I'm a lecturer at one of the unis you're interested in, and I also live in the NE. Feel free to PM me if you want to chat - I'm not in the humanities but have friends that teach them.

Teesside is ok for humanities but not prestigious.
That said, they do have good pastoral care, student services are good, and they have a good proportion of mature students and parent students.
Housing is cheap and plentiful too. I live in Hartlepool and went there as a single parent mature student and couldn't have gone anywhere else. My sister did too, and is now in her 25th year as a probation officer.
It's probably worth a good look at the courses etc, it could be ideal. They also help with finances, and offer lots of bursaries, discretionary funds and suchlike.

Oh and I can recommend one particular primary school in Hartlepool that is good for children with an EHCP if you want. PM me.

I think you need to focus more on what you want to do. You seemed to have settled more on “the north east” rather than the course, accreditation, career post-graduation etc, and if you can actually meet the requirements for some of them. I’d go away and have a think about what you want to achieve from university before you start looking at schools etc. You’ll need to submit a statement why you want to do that course and you don’t seem to have a passion for a particular area which will come across if you’re just applying to be on the NE

Hi op I live in monkseaton its classesd as north tyneside its 20 minutes on the metro to newcastle. I grew up in cullercoats I would say cullercoats, tynemouth , whitley bay , monkseaton are all nice child friendly , good schools, ( not that many council houses come up here and the ones that do are in big demand ) you would be near the beach and they each have a metro station so getting into town is fine. Tynemouth would be the most expensive to rent / buy generally. North shields might be more likely if you are looking for council housing but some parts are not as nice and I would say avoid certain parts. Nearer newcastle jesmond is nice but parts are very student based. Gosforth is nice but expensive I dont know the schools in the area. I am a student but doing mine through the open university so not going to local uni. I think if you narrow down which uni and then look from there as the areas you have mentioned are not particularly close so people probably wont have local knowledge of each one.

The issue you will have in the NE (as with everywhere I imagine), is that those areas with good schools and that are desirable to live will have extremely low availability of council housing and it will be like gold dust.

Durham uni is the Oxbridge of the North (or it certainly was when I was applying for unis but to be fair that was a while ago).

Newcastle uni is very prestigious for many of its degree courses and attracts a large number of (lucrative) overseas students on to many of its degree courses (one of my pals is the foreign student liaison and part of the talent attraction team so I'm not just randomly making stuff up).
Actually come to think of it my neighbour is head of the humanities school/faculty at Newcastle so if you had any specific questions I could ask her.

When I studied there (a while ago) Newcastle was good for English and Creative Writing courses. I think the creative writing MA was pretty new at the time.

I enjoyed my time there and considering it was a fairly big institution, the pastoral support was good.

I lived in 2 different bits of Gosford which was nice.
Before that, I lived just south of Heaton Park and even though the area wasn't the best, it was right near a school and 2 parks and it was good being able to walk to uni instead of relying on buses.

Do English unis have 'widening participation' criteria to relax grades for people in certain circumstances such as carers?

My current, more modern university has support and a social group for carers but parent carers aren't particularly well represented.

Gosforth obviously.
That is a weirdly specific autocorrect

www.ncl.ac.uk/schools/partners/eligibility/#eligibilitycriteria

They have a confusing ambiguity around the heading of the 'carers' section vs the description of a carer.
So worth checking whether they really meant to only say 'young carer'. And you would have to attend a summer school but those tend to be linked with a much lower drop out rate and better grades so if that's possible, it might be good.

Durham is top for English in the UK in some league tables. They have a great Foundation programme my relative did, offering an extra year for students with non-traditional backgrounds, disrupted education etc., who can then join the mainstream degrees if they pass a preparatory year. They take a lot of mature students onto that programme if you aren't predicted the A* AA-type offer they usually make.
All the unis in the area will have Widened Participation to attract more mature students, people with caring responsibilities etc. if you meet the criteria.
Culturally a lot of students put Durham as their second choice to Oxford/Cambridge and it attracts a lot of southerners.
Durham offers small-town life, very safe, mainline rail, estates around the centre but not much council housing in the town itself as far as I know.
Newcastle offers much more in terms of city facilities, shops, stuff going on, and good transport links. Highly respected courses, more diverse student body than Durham.
Teesside is good for technical/vocational courses but less prestigious for academic subjects.
Same academic reputation with Northumbria; it has a good location right in town as you'll have seen.

I'd suggest Kingston Park in Newcastle. 15 mins via metro to town, lots of shops, and a really good mainstream school for kids with additional needs.

Why the North East OP, where are you now?

I did English at Durham. It's very difficult to get into, I busted a gut to get my application right and then get the grades.

Also, Durham as a uni is very very different to the others. Most of it is very traditional, and Durham is a very small city. Bustling, though. And close to Newcastle by train. I had an amazing time there, not sure what it would be like as a mature student with children though.

Middlesbrough has good special school provision- is that likely to be required?

Don't even try to get into Durham unless you're predicted A*s.

Some courses offer slightly lower grades, but the caliber of students who apply means that people with lower grades will be lost among those with a sea of predicted A*s and extra curriculars under their belts.