Moving to South East of England from Scotland

[uprootedmum]

We're moving from Scotland to the South East of England (for my DH's job and for being nearer airports to visit family in Quebec more often).

We have 3 children still in primary schools (11, 9 and 7 yrs old) and we need to find a place to live with good state secondary school as private schools are not an option for us. We're planning to move in June 2012 and my DS would start secondary in September 2012.

Our 11yrs DS is bright but dyslexic and has ADHD and would struggle to pass any entry test in a very oversubscribed school, let alone the fact that we are very late for tests...

My DH will need to commute 2-3 days a week max to central London. Also, we need a place where there is a Swimming Club nearby as all 3 children swim competitively.

I looked at places like either Sutton/Dulwich or Guilford or Reading/Maindenhead but not quite sure where to look and if there will be any hopes of getting into a school once you buy the house (or can we secure a place before the house is bought?..).

Any help is most welcome and thank you and sorry for the length of this....

Perhaps it would help to narrow down your search a bit. Where in central London would DH need to commute to? What is the nearest mainline station? It might be better to work around that.

Mid-Sussex is nice, around the Burgess Hill/Haywards Heath area. It takes around 45 mins to London on the train. It's also very close to gatwick.

The local swimming club I believe is Olypos Marlins or Mid-Sussex Marlins...something Marlins anyway!

My dc aren't at secondary yet, but the ones around here seem to be fairly good and are non-selective.

hth

Agree that London destination station is the best starting point. It's a pita getting to various parts of London from where I live in SE, but not to others.

The places you have mentioned both have different London terminals, both very far apart.

Marking a place.

when we were setting up home we used an earlier version of this book to help us decide where to settle. Using train lines it goes out from london giving prices of houses, schools and descriptions of each town, village

Thank you very much for all that. The place my DH will be based initially is near Euston Station but he might not be there for a long time and is likely to go to different meetings most days and he doesn't mind an extra 15 min. in the tube so it shouldn't matter too much for the London destination. Thanks eatyourveg for the book recommendation, I just bought and it's great. I will have a look at Mid-Sussex and Burgess Hill/Haywards Heath area. Thanks jingleyells! Any more comments most welcome!

The best swimming club in the south east at the moment is Guildford City - they're wiping the floor with the rest of the teams at the moment, but they are huge so if you're after a bit more personal attention and a family feel then maybe one of the smaller clubs would be better. Sorry I've no idea what the housing/schooling situation is as we just see them at galas

Dulwich-way you'd be looking at Beckenham for swimming and depending on whereabouts you are, at the Charter for secondary - it has a fairly tiny catchment though and house prices in that area are a bit scary

Sutton has the grammar schools which obviously creams off the top 25% or so so the other schools aren't truly comprehensive, housing is cheaper though - Sutton and Cheam swimming club are improving rapidly and also have a water polo section

Guildford does have other swimming clubs. I would suggest it is a good town as it has good comprehensives.
I know families who moved in the summer and got their daughter (with an appeal) into the most sought after of the Comps, her younger sister got into a good primary, but didn't settle so they moved her to a different primary.
Guildford has the Spectrum and the Sports park, both with pools, there are also lots of other swimming pools locally.
(BTW the best of the comps has a fab SENCO.)

Thanks basildonbond and mummy time! That all looks very interesting. I will look today into Guilford and their schools and maybe into town a bit like Sutton/Dulwich... Thanks!

Just wanted to add that Sutton grammar schools take children from a very wide geographical area, not just Sutton, so probably only cream off about 5-10% of children.

Thanks CecilyP and all the others for informative comments. It's really good to know there is people happy to share insights! I'm looking into Sutton more closely now!

What about West Berkshire? (Ha- I'm always telling people to move there on here!). There is a good secondary called the Willink in Burghfield that used to have a good reputation for swimming (don't know abiut now- I'm not on the swimming scene anymore).

The villages around Junction 12 of the M4 are lovely. Reading swimming club is good- they have lots of water time and a pro coach.

Redhill has a very good swimming club. If you are religious then St Bede's in Redhill is the best school in the locality.

Lots of good schools in Haywards Heath. Two big secondary - Oathall and Warden Park with very good reputations. PE very big at WP. Swimming club in HH is very good too I think though no personal experience - think it called The Marlins.

Huge 50M pool at K2 Leisure centre in Crawley but schools a bit crapper there and not such a nice place to live. It depends how much money you have to buy a house really as to where you look and what size you are looking for.

Horley is cheaper, next door to Gatwick (literally) and within a quick car drive of Redhill and Crawley. Local Secondary looks bad on paper but is a really good school.

Agree with flying mum re Haywards Heath. We live in a village just outside it. Main line station to London is major attraction - fast and frequent service and villages are great. Really close to Brighton and the coast too. Very good local schools and Mid-Sussex Marlins is a large and very friendly swim club (it has swimming for all ages for learners and squads - competitive swimming in local and national galas, a good waterpolo section, disability section and very large masters section too). Swim squads train mostly at the Triangle Sports centre in Burgess Hill - although younger squads may be in other pools locally.

Thanks again that's great, will have a closer look to those new area suggested! Being a bit outside the M25 might get us a bit of a bigger house as well and as I work from home at the moment, I need a bit of extra space...

I'm looking into Reading as well... So, I've narrowed it to either Sutton, around Haywards Heath or Reading... I think Reading would give us the feel of being in a city but a "human size" one. I just need to check the schools there...

Highdown in Reading is OK. Think that's about it though...

There's one in Tilehurst that used to have a good rep (can't remember the name)- but you really are better off out in the villages. What about Theale?

I did some search for Reading and the two schools that are "outstanding" (according to Ofsted) are test based and we are too late for entry and after speaking to someone in the schools and the council, there is no chance of getting in for 2012. All the other secondary schools are either "satisfactory" or "good" and I've been told that there is very very little chance of getting into a "good" school as they are all over-suscribed and they don't keep any space for late incomers. That means we would have to go to a "satisfactory" school if we go for Reading.....

And that brought me back to Sutton way... Looked at all the secondary schools Ofsted reports and all of them are either "outstanding" or "good" which means there is little risks to be bumped into a "satisfactory" school.

Not sure about West Sussex as I didn't have time to go through all the Ofsted reports yet...

Dulwich is good if you can afford it. Some very good schools nearby.

Dulwich looks really pretty but the state schools in the borough of Southwark don't seem to do that well... Since we're late comers, we probably won't be able to get into our first choices of schools so the rest need to be decent as well...

Your eldest is already 11 yo?

Yes, he was 11 at the end of September 2011. Does that mean something I'm missing? I understand that in England children start secondary school when they are 11 yo on the 31st of August just before starting.

Ah - September birthday. That's fine then. As you were.

Okay you will have to either go onto a waiting list and/or appeal to get your child into you school of choice. If you move to Sutton, the borough council could still end up offering your child a place at a satisfactory or worse school in say Croydon.
You need to start slimming down your areas, and do this by where you will be working, transport links etc. Also I would probably avoid grammar school areas.
Then don't just go on Ofsted ratings, some of them are very out of date, they are only a snap shot, and they don't tell the whole story. You really need to look at the schools themselves.

I've done lots and lots of research this week into areas and schools, looking at maps, Ofsted reports, house prices, etc. I was trying to figure out how the school system works, assuming that if I move into a Borough/Council where all the schools are "good" or "outstanding", I would be ok as I wouldn't be "bumped down" to a struggling school... Now Mummytime, you've mentioned that if we moved into Sutton, we could potentially be sent to a Croydon school, which destroys my theory!

Also, I seem to find that every Borough/Council has some grammar schools (11 plus test based), so how avoiding this?

We are going to visit places during the mid-Feb break and I haven't excluded any outside M25 area (apart from Reading maybe as the schools or either over subscribed or not very good) but it looks like we would look for an area within the M25 and on the south side (my DH likes to access the seaside easily).

So, I am now narrowing it down to Kingston Borough (Kingston upon thames, or Surbiton) or to Sutton Borough Carshalton or Cheam.