To just say F it and move to Cornwall and homeschool my Dc

[Typingonkeyboard]

Or find a lovely little village school and spend our days living a slow, traditional life

It’s my dream

Has anyone got this, am I being realistic?

This is lovely, which are of Manchester?

I would do this if family were still there

I grew up in the country-side, beach on my doorstep, pony, tiny village school etc etc.

It was idyllic when I was little, straight out of an Enid Blyton book. But as soon as I was a teenager, I hated the place with a passion.

As soon as I was 18 I was straight out of there to university. As soon as I finished uni I moved to London and stayed there. I chose to raise my kids in the city rather than countryside, seaside living.

LOL. You clearly have no clue what it is really like. Good luck if you do it.

Yes that would be very sad

If you want to do lots of Home Ed trips, almost all journeys will need to start with getting out of Cornwall and that will add an extra couple of hours.

How old are yours? I do feel pressure to do it soon or not at all due to her age

But everywhere is a long way from somewhere. You could live in a city and your child might move away to another one that's a long way away. Cornwall isn't further away from everywhere than everywhere else, it's further away from the things it's further away from!

Your child might move to Exeter or Plymouth and not be that far away or they might move to London for a bit to see what that's like or they might move abroad. Or they might never move away and decide to stay here. Or they might come back after a few years. I just don't think you can really plan for or control that can you?

I have friends who never moved away and friends who moved to Bristol, Canada, Australia, Vietnam, Leeds, Cardiff and Dundee. Lots of them have now come back to Cornwall in their thirties and forties. Surely even people in London (where I'm told they have all the shops) have their children move away too? Has OP even said where she's from? If she has I've missed it.

Why is Newquay not good for teens

17 and 19.
I know it’s horses for courses, but I really wish we had done it.

i couldn’t stand being in a city, every day is a different day by the coast.

Holidaying there is vastly different to living there. Make sure you have the means to leave as and when you can, it’s a long way from most places. It is beautiful and incredibly tempting but the long wet dark winters can be tough. There’s a huge amount of poverty and often the contrast of wealth and the poor can be stark, health services are stretched too.

As idyllic as it may seem, there is a lot to be said for convenience, good transport connections and proximity to your family and friends.

Do you live there?

Drug culture in summer. Seasonal work only for adults.

I didn't live in Newquay, but friends who taught in secondary schools had these concerns. This was more than ten years ago, but maybe different now. My kids had college friends in Newquay who could not wait to leave because there was only minimum wage jobs for them.

It was this one.

I don't mean in Cornwall, I mean in the rest of the country. Cornwall is so far from anywhere, you can be really cut off. It means family don't see each other that often. Look at OP for example, barely knows Cornwall even though her parents live there.

But everywhere is a long way from somewhere.

It's the transport links. Even if you drive, I don't think people realise how long it takes to just get out of Cornwall and access the motorway. If you're relying on public transport, forget it.

We did the same, but County Antrim , right on the NW coast . We live in an area of outstanding natural beauty and a dark sky area, its just absolutely stunning

Beaches of sand that are miles long, surfing , shallow waters. forests, glens, cliffs, - we have it all

Pay is lower here then what we were used to being Londoners, but then we became mortgage free so as long as the day to day living is covered, we are content

Primary schools are small However kids have to travel to secondary school, school busses come early to rural communities

What we love about living here is the pure sense of community. We chose right for us, it can still be very territorial, but we live in a tiny hamlet , there are two townlands with schools within a mile, and the town is 4 miles away . We know our neighbours, we interact with them all, share plants, home grown/made , help each other out but we dont live in each others pockets

Kids here are chauffeured because there is no street lighting or pavements. Every home that has kids has a lot of garden furniture for them, - swings, trampolines , climbing frames etc because they can be the only children around. And for little ones it can be lonely. However the churches have a lot of clubs as do the community centres

We also have very long summer holidays as it's a farming community. Most kids can drive a tractor aged 12/13 and ive not yet met a teen who hasn't passed their test around their 17th birthday

Down sides, it's a tourist area. Good weather and the coastal areas are rammed with cars. Come winter, most places close. Most jobs are seasonal unless you are a professional

Its not horrible down here, OP, if family is here that's a big thing. I obviously love it but it's my place, I was born here and so were generations of my ancestors and all the scabby deprivation is part of my story. You might not appreciate it in the same way!

We live fine on DHs very good for Cornwall salary (c.60k) and my few hours a week minimum wage, but we rarely go on holiday and I'm getting increasingly worried about the price of heating oil... plus we live in one of the grubbiest, most deprived inland areas. Like I said, I don't mind that, its like a comfy slipper to me. But the sort of village you're describing sounds more like the one near Falmouth my friend lives in and they earn a LOT more than us, and spend all of it.

The winters - well, it rains all the time. You don't know till you know. The cloud never lifts. We never get proper snow (once in a blue moon) and I didn't scrape the car even once last winter but its very grey and you just never really dry out or feel the sunshine on you so it's pretty chilly. I know that cold wind you describe, it's worse on some coasts than others, yes I imagine Newquay does get it. Perranporth may be a bit more sheltered. South Coast generally more sheltered - that same friend in Falmouth often gets sunshine when we're trapped in a cloud but then I do live half way up a carn.

I might be biased as the most of the people I know from Cornwall all work in MH but there’s huge issues with drug use in Newquay, St Austell, Redruth, Cambourne. Huge! People with some addictive behaviours/ MH conditions tend to gravitate to the coast, there’s even research on it. So how that factors into your Enid B ideal I don’t know.
Personally for me, even being a bit Cornish, I would struggle with never belonging, always being an emmit and being the butt of all the jokes and targeted by passive aggressive comments. My kids would also have the same experience in school. And diversity?
I could also not deal with my children having to leave to find work. Of my Cornish family, not one relative under 50 still lives there. And so who looks after the grandparents and offers them company?
Not to mention the older relatives only seeing their grandchildren and families over zoom
or social media. It really is very far.
Further down the line, is that really what you want, OP? Your children moving away and having their families miles away from you, not being able to visit often as you’re at least a good three hours away in a place with no direct motorway access.

I’ve lived all over the country, due to my husbands job, and honestly count our 3 years in Cornwall as a foreign posting, despite having lived abroad - and having even lived in Cornwall as a child.

We were in Bude. It’s beautiful in summer, but crowded. It’s so quiet and isolated in winter. The beaches are lovely but the tide is fierce. The outdoor pool we avoided in summer as the tides were too low to scour it out and clean it and we were warned to avoid it.

You are 50 miles from Plymouth hospital (the one we were encouraged to use) ditto from Plymouth and Exeter, and the nearest main railway line. I’m a teacher and in my experience any permanent teaching job went to a local.

older children (16+) frequently had to go and live elsewhere during the week so they could get the education they needed.

It was much more expensive there because of the costs of bringing produce in.

In winter it was dead.

If you like to be isolated then fine, but it really is a Marmite place. Folks loved it or loathed it. There was no middle ground.

As far as home schooling is concerned I’ve been supporting some of the home schooled for years now, but honestly feel that many would be much better off in school due to issues about social isolation. I’ve really seen them struggle years later in the workplace as a result.

I suspect you are sold on the dream? I’d suggest going down there in January for a couple of weeks. You may change your mind after that. But if you are still of the same mind, then why not?

We looked into it but landed in the south east by the coast. Our village is lovely but has a train station with direct routes to London and Brighton, so good for work. Beach 15 min drive away and out in countryside. We also considered the Kent/essex beach areas

I live in Cornwall. There are pros and cons as with anywhere.

Newquay is one of the better places for kids, with lots to do and more rainy day things. For example, bowling, cinema, zoo, arcades, Lappa valley nearby. I take my kids to things in the Newquay area quite a bit.

My kids have 28 and 29 other kids in their class I think. Not sure how that compares to yours.

A worry for me is if I ever lose my job. It would be hard to find another. For example if I got a hybrid remote one it would mean travelling several hours and being away part of the week. This really limits my job opportunities. Think hard about that side of things unless you have a job that can easily be done anywhere as once the kids are settled it is hard to move them.

There's Plymouth too, what's that like? And Exeter?

Can you imagine in the peak Summer months? Roads crammed with tourists and queues, crowded beaches and no parking spaces, empty supermarkets, no restaurant availability ….
Spring and Autumn would be gorgeous, but I couldn’t face the crowds around Newquay.

My friend moved to Dorset for similar reasons when hers were small. Leaving home counties. Mixed experience. They had wonderful times at the weekends and built a great network of friends.
But. Friend’s new job had no prospects and she never improved her earnings. Children got into drugs when they were teens then went to uni and one couldn’t cope and came home and now works in a pub. The other doesn’t want to comeback after uni as no jobs or prospects.
Maybe a compromise with a small village on transport routes into a city. Children grow up!

If you’re in a position to then absolutely! I would do this in a heart beat!

If you want coastal, beautiful, quiet and remote I’d go the other way-Northumberland. With the added advantage that it’s cheaper (although also colder).