Is it normal for so many people to leave London primary schools?

[thejall]

Sorry for the crap title.
We have lost an awful lot of children from my dcs school classes these last few yrs. Some have moved to private & some have left London. Is this normal movement or has covid exacerbated it? The local schools are excellent & Ive never known them to have places whereas they all do now.

I'm in z2/3 & grew up close by but my mum doesn't remember much change & her neighbours are still the same from decades ago whereas lots of my neighbours have also left but the area is very different to how it was when I was young.

I have found it all quite unsettling & definitely put less effort into friendships as what is the point when so transitionary.

Having said that I'm moving further out to z4/5 as the majority of my friends who I grew up with are that way or in Surrey. Same for DH who is also a Londoner. I wouldn't have considered this if I hadn't lost so many friends. Will there be similar movement in the outer zones?

@ToadiesCouzin yes where we looking you see them out & about which I like.

@BendingSpoons yes I looked up deliveroo & ubereats & was very disappointed! 😆 I will miss all the fab independents.

Our eldest was 2 when weaved though, so easier in some ways to be starting school from the beginning.

The independents are what I really miss. Although the pubs are decent.

When we moved! Not when weaved..

Pretty normal in London but definitely slower in the suburbs in zone 4-6 IMO.

Yes I'm a bit anxious to be starting again.

Moved from Zone 2 to Zone 4 for more space/better schools when mine were babies. There wasn’t much movement in my DC’s primary school. A couple of Polish families went back to Poland post-Brexit but that was about it.

I live on the Surrey/Sutton border and the amount of people moving here has exploded and there is a little out (but no way as much as in). I suspect you probably are moving fairly close to me

One of my friends works in a school in Zone 3 on the railway line and she spent a lot of time at the end of term looking at how to make classes work due to the number of people who have moved out.

I think it is the working from home effect where there is not as much need to be as close for a 5 day commute and you can have a longer commute for 2-3 days a week and move out to get more for your money

@Quartz2208 looking at parts of Kingston

Lack of teachers in state primary did it for us. Children don't like worksheets and need supervision......

Where I live (affluent commuter belt village) we get the constant flow out from london! Although lots go into private schools as parents have freed up the their finances a bit selling london property.

Zone 3 and yr 3 here. Some movement - lost about 4 kids. had 4 new joiners.

I think it’s good for kids to learn that change happens. Life shouldn’t stand still. Change can be good. The thought of living where I grew up feels stifling

and ‘moving to Surrey’ ….a Suburban hell!

The thought of living where I grew up feels stifling

I don't think you can call London stifling

and ‘moving to Surrey’ ….a Suburban hell!

I'm not moving there but understand why some might. Tbh I count where I live in z3 as the suburbs, don't get the angst about ut.

it

My mum taught in central London in the 70s. The school was very diverse but among the higher earning parents most of their children left to go to private or even boarding school between age 7 and 9.

I see our school turnover stats as I am a governor and it's it's 28% at the moment in our nice zone 3 primary. I think a lot of families are leaving London, more than usual

I work for a company that provides services to schools on a per child cost. I've looked after london for a while. Subscriptions have been declining for a while and I've asked... my schools attribute it to Brexit, cost of living to move out of central london and a lower birth rate from 2008 onwards

I teach in zone 5 and my classes have been getting smaller every year. I only had 23 the last academic year.

Our school has now merged some of the smaller classes together so we have classes of 35 in some year groups from September. Reception has reduced it's intake this year too. Most families have left due to covid and brexit.

I think I remember a thread on this topic a few years ago- worth having a look to see if you can find it.

London will always have had much higher churn than other areas, but house prices and working from home now make leaving so much easier, so I’m sure it has increased.

Ah yes we are just to the west of Kingston in Worcester Park/Stoneleigh but close enough to shop!

👍🏼

I don't think you can call London stifling

no I rather meant growing up in suburbia and staying there because everybody else does. London is the opposite of stifling!

zone 3 isn’t suburbia though, it’s 12m into central London, has thriving independent shops and restaurants, great communities, usually votes Labour as opposed to Tory Surrey. There is a hugely marked difference between zone 3 south London and a little further out in, say, Bromley

They are all moving to the North. Our schools are inundated with applications from Londoners.

Completely normal. I moved out of my London primary when I was 8, and there were always kids coming and going. This was in the 1970s.

London is much more transitory

We are currently moving and will be the 7 or 8th family to live in my yr3 child's class . And this is from an outstanding state primary frequently topping Sunday times leage tables

Movers definitely sped up post covid and less coming in to replace them

DH and I talk about this a lot. We were heavily involved in a sports club in z3 which has a lot of (now inactive but still social) members who have been there for 40-50 years. In their early 30s they could afford a mortgage on a family home and they have stayed there ever since.

Like us, all of 'our generation' can't afford more than a one bedroom flat, and that's if we're lucky. Many are in house shares. So when it comes to settling down, the only option is to move out.

I'm still connected to the club and I think we see about a six year churn cycle. Some stay until their first child is infant school age, most are gone before that.