If I give you a postcode can you tell me which schools are good?!

[UserUStoUK]

In the deep end here but DH has got a job at JCB headquartes st14 5jp. We are going up in a couple of weeks to look at homes (probably renting at first). We currently lives several hours from there down in the south and neither of us have ever even been further than London!!! We don’t know where to start with schools and know absolutely nobody in the area either. I have one primary age and one secondary age. We can afford private but again no idea what the schools are like round there and ideally we would want to use state. Any advice welcome as I feel quite overwhelmed! TIA

*further north than London that should say. we have been further than London in general 😂

It might be a case of them having to go where there's space. So you might not have a choice.

Have a look at a website called Locrating. You can pay a small one off fee for access to lots of school info and catchment maps for an area you're looking at moving to. The info is usually also available for free on local authority websites, but it's harder to find and compare. Good luck with the move!

I don’t know the areas but people are going to need to know what ages the children are. But like a pp said, for mid year applications you will need to see which schools have places in those year groups.

Gov website might help
https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/schools-by-type?step=default&table=schools&region=860&geographic=la&for=secondary
I suggest looking at Ashbourne( Derbyshire) and Uttoxeter ( Staffordshire) as towns with secondary/ primary

You’ll get more relevant replies from people if you post asking in the title for schools “near Alton Towers” or something like that, to attract the attention of people who live there.

We are quite local. I'd avoid Cheadle as a place to live, and although Uttoxetter is ok it's not the nicest area. Depending on how close you want to live to JCB I'd look at Alton or Ashbourne (easy commute) as both have good state schools. Alton doesn't have a high school but I think feeds to Painsley in Cheadle which is a very good school. Ashbourne has St Oswalds, Ashbourne Primary and Clifton which all feed to QEGS.

Locrating is the best, pay for a month
Otherwise put the area and search for threads like "moving to xyz" on mumsnet and some schools/areas will come up
Reddit useful too for same thing
League tables/ofsted and make a list
Then try and narrow areas to move to to be in catchment
Honestly not sure how it works when you apply out of catchment during school year though. Normally you just go to whatever school has space
Perhaps you could make your list of schools then phone each one to see if there's space and what the process is