Looking for area with good secondary schools with easy commute to London city

[Bshweta]

Hi,
My family has recently moved to England and we are looking at prospective places to live in. Our main criteria is good state secondary schools, max 1 hour door to door commute to the city, open spaces. We have shifted from the US and have no prior experience of living in the UK.
We were looking at Surrey as we liked the place but looks like the rents are quite high here. Any guidance would be much appreciated. Thanks

Rents are going to be high anywhere that meets that criteria. St Albans/Harpenden area would also fit the description.

What's your budget? Where about a I. The City, will determine the nearest / easiest train or tube?

Whereabouts in the City?

As the PP said, rents are going to be high in most places that fit those criteria because lots of people want that. Are you able to give an approximate budget and property size?

Tunbridge Wells has great schools and is less than 45 minutes to London Bridge. It isn't cheap, but as others have said, no where with that criteria will be.

Do you mean London, or the City in London (ie financial district)? If the latter, I’d suggest you look eastward. Anything zone 4/5 on the Central line would work and is cheaper than Surrey. Wanstead, South Woodford etc are lovely and there’s a decent range of schools. Further out you have Buckhurst Hill, Loughton etc. Further in, there’s slightly edgier Leytonstone which is cheaper. All surrounded by Epping Forest and also close to Stansted for trips away.

London per se is a big place, so you need to specify which main line rail station is the closest to your offices. Ideally you want a direct train in and no tube changes.

Bishop’s Stortford for access to London Liverpool Street. Excellent state schools, lots of countryside on the doorstep. Very close to Stansted Airport.

We need to know:
Your budget to rent or buy
Private or state schools
Where you need to get to

Otherwise there are a very large number or options. 😊

Bromley area has good schools. You can get a train from Orpington into central London or Cannon St (in the City) in well under an hour. It is on the same line as Tunbridge wells (as mentioned by PP) but the fares are far lower due to the fact that Orpington is still within the London transport zones.

Thank you all, just to add some more info,
1)Budget for rental is 2500-2700
2)We are looking for areas with good State funded secondary schools
3)We need easy commute to Fenchurch street .(Preferable a direct train and within an hour of door to door travel)

Someone suggested we look at Essex,i believe it was Leigh on the sea .Would anyone have a review of this place.Our main priority is good secondary schools.

I don't know Leigh on sea but the other places on that route are very mixed with lots of deprivation. I think looking at places coming in to Liverpool St (10 mins from fenchurch st) would work better. O second Bishop's Stortford. Really good secondary schools. You could also look at the areas around Epping. Also Hertford and Ware. If you are looking at mid year admissions location may be less important but you'll need to watch catchment areas if you will be applying for secondary school places at year 7 (11 year olds)

Watford, Hertfordshire, London Underground Met line into City or 20 mins into Euston on train. Watford Boys and Watford Girls Grammer Schools, also several good co-ed secondary schools, Parmiters, Queens, and Rickmansworth School.

Hitchin? Train goes into kingsx and into the city. Hitchin Girls and Hitchin Boys school get excellent exam results. You would need to live near the schools to get a place.

@Fredthefrog

I don't know Leigh on sea but the other places on that route are very mixed with lots of deprivation. I think looking at places coming in to Liverpool St (10 mins from fenchurch st) would work better. O second Bishop's Stortford. Really good secondary schools. You could also look at the areas around Epping. Also Hertford and Ware. If you are looking at mid year admissions location may be less important but you'll need to watch catchment areas if you will be applying for secondary school places at year 7 (11 year olds)

Hi, I am unfamiliar with the schooling system here. Please let me know why you mentioned that location is less important for mid year admissions. My daughter will turn 12 in August. In the US she was going to grade 6 but here I believe it would be grade 7. So she would join grade 7 mid year here.

Chelmsford, lots of good state schools including grammars. 35mins from Liverpool Street. Stay away from the Melbourne area and you'll be fine.

So if she starts in September, having turned 12 in August, she should go into Year 8 which is the second year of secondary school.

Fenchurch Street is close to Liverpool Street, London Bridge or Cannon Street so any line going into those would be ok.

It sounds like you are already in the UK and looking for a school for your daughter right now? In which case you're correct, you're talking mid-year admission to Year 7.

I'd look at Bromley/Orpington, I have friends who live out that way with kids at St Olave's and love it (that's a boys school and won't do you much good, but there are quite a few good schools round there it seems.)

The state secondary options in Epping, Loughton etc are very poor. There is Davenant if you are religious.
Bishops Stortford and Chelmsford are great options for commute and schools.

Watch out for your commuting cost too, it’s all well and good choosing out of London with a train line in, but it’s expensive to travel in.

Recommend Upminster. 22 mins into Fenchurch Street and on the District Line as well. Good secondary schools. Nice commuter town with shops, restaurants, bars etc. Can be pricey but a nice place to live.

Just be aware OP that very good state secondaries are often really over-subscribed, especially near london. It may not be easy to pick up a place in the middle of year 7 - you might have to join a waiting list. Other posters will have more experience but certainly around here (Surrey) you can wait until Year 8 or even Year 9 before a spare place comes up in a really good state school.

An American friend of mine, who lives in the UK, used to work for a company called "School Choice" which specialized in finding suitable schools for expat Americans - although I think they mostly dealt with the independent sector. She's retired, so I don't know if the firm is still extant, but you could try a swift Google. Maybe you could network with the expat. community, although if parents are not putting down permanent roots, they may opt for the likes of the American School in London (but this is fee-paying, usually funded by the company which brought them over).

You might want to talk to the school/council about which year she should go into. As an August birthday they might suggest she go into y7 not year 8 with cohort in September because the US school system doesnt line up with ours.

Ashford in Kent. Great grammar schools, much cheaper than Tunbridge Wells BUT has the high speed train so only 30 minutes into London.

Your daughter has missed the start of Year 7 (which is the correct year for her age; it's really unusual for a state school to put a child in a different year group than their age based one). That means that you will be making a school application outside of normal school application times, so you are entirely dependent on which schools have places. (which is why a PP said that location is not so important).