Looking for London suburbs with good state schools

[Usworkingmom]

My husband and I are considering a move to London from the US with my company from the states. We would both be working in central London but want to find a commutable suburb with good state schools for our children ages 10 (boy) and 8 (girl). The company will not pay for schools so the American schools are out of the question. Our kids go to amazing state schools here in the US and private schools combined with the cost of living in London is out of the question. We also have a big rambunctous dog that makes the thought of living in a tiny flat unbearable! any ideas on lovely suburbs that are within 40 minutes of London with great non fee paying schools? It seems from reading threads on Mumsnet that most people do private/independent schools beyond primary no matter where they are living - that is unless their children are bright enough to get in to selective grammar schools.

Watford junction train station is 20 mins to Euston so a very good commute. You could live near Watford , like rickmansworth or other nearby villages and still get into watford grammar or parmiters.

You could - if they were bright enough to pass the v competitive exam. To get a distance place for Watford Grammar Boys you'd have to live within about 500m of the school. For Parmiters it's about 1200m. The exam is vv competitive.

Should add that to do entrance exam for Watford Grammar or Parmiters (same exam), application forms must be in by 14 June this year for your 10 year old. The exam date is 15 Sept. Dates for all grammar schools will be similar this year - they've all been brought back.

Dates for application forms for all other schools will be end of Oct and OPen Days any time from May n. So you'd better be in the country and settled soon r this whole conversation will be a bit academic if you'll excuse the pun!

b&b, yes Watford garmmar is a good state schools. 25% get in by the exam and in proper state grammars that is 100% so a big difference and that plays out in the marks too.

Boys is 87th and girls is 169th in the country (FT tables).
Whereas Haberdashers which is near in the private sector and selective in the proper sense is about 20th.
Dr Challoners state selective grammar 67th.
North London collegiate 5th (girls selective private).

In other words Watford "Grammar" is better than lots of state schools but is certainly not a state grammar and does not do as well as some other local schools (although is heaps better than many local state schools).

I suggest harpenden , hertfordshire,

st georges,
sir john lawes
and roundwood.

google them, harpenden does have a quite a lot of people from the states and canada around.

Bitchin Hitchin has supposedly got the best schools in the country according to the guy I work with from there

Xenia - I'd be rather surprised if a state school that selects only 25% of its intake on exam and spends about a third of what Habs/NLC do achieved identical results to those fully selective schools! As private schools don't publish value-added scores, it is not possible to make a realistic comparison as to whether a bright pupil who attends the former will do better or worse than the equivalent pupil at the latter. 97% of pupils at the WGs scored 5 or more GCSEs A-C and 100% 3 A Levels so hardly very different to Habs/NLC - re league tables, it obviously depends which one you pick, but WG Boys A level scores at 973.4 points per candidate do not seem sufficiently different to Habs at 980.2 points per candidate to be worth 15K per year to me... Depends how deep your pockets are, I suppose.

It does not negate the point that the Watford Grammars are not comps - only a very small number of pupils will get distance places and most of those will have to live very close. Knowing the area, I supect the long drag on the Met line is probably not the easiest route into Chancery Lane. Not knocking the schools - far from it, but suggesting that SE London might be a better choice for this particular OP.

Yes, Watford Grammar schools are good (and like most good schools most people cannot get into them).

Watford Girls is 169th in the country (FT tables).
Haberdashers girls is about 20th.

Value added - if both are pretty selective then they probably start with similar IQs although the Watford grammar entrance is I think a bit complex, 25% only by academics because they have to be comprehensive because they are not in a grammar school area like Bucks

Boys is 87th in the country so better (last year) - I think the FT tables which I like best also do an average over 5 years which is often better for parents to look at as sometimes you just happen in any school to get a better or worse year than another school. Haberdashers boys is probably around 20th or higher. So they seem to be closer by A level results.
Habs girls is about £12k a year and I thought worth every penny, a lovely school.

I agree, a lovely school - my dd's best friend is there, my dd at WGGS. That said, if I was paying 12K a year, I'd wonder why the average diference in A Level point score was so miniscule, given that 75% of WGGS's pupils are not selected on academic grounds - if I had a spare 12K to spare for my bright child, I suspect it would be better spent on some rather nice holidays etc :) than on school fees when the results for the bright kids at both schools are basically identical.

Maybe the OP should considr Habs - generally agreed to be easier to get into than the semi-selectives, as the competition is only from the wealthy, assuming of course that she has a spare 12K?

The OP has, of course, specifically said that private schools are out of the question.

I know - I only put that in to wind up Xenia, as she has been doing to me. ;)

Hertfordshire has some of the best schools in the country it is also the safest county in England apparently.

It is nice, but is it nicer than W London or Kent or Surrey? Don't know.

W London and Surrey are lovely but Kent ??? its worse than Essex for common accents IMO

Wot?

Clearly if common accents bother you then stay away from Kent! We have friends who've moved to all 3 of those areas and all seem very pleasant to me. (The areas rather than the friends.)

Re: accents, there's Kent and then Kent.
Think, say, Gravesend vs Tunbridge Wells.

The accents don't show up on the FT A level league tables. I wonder if there is a correlation between strong regional accents and the schools in the lower reaches of the league tables or not. Is the accent of a sttae school pupil at Dr Challoners or whatever better than that of my local comp with their 34% A - C at GCSE most of which is in travel and tourism GCSE?

Do you think they should have an accent league table especially for those parents who fret about such things?

Would everywhere remotely northern automatically cme bottom, or are northern accents deemed OK, just not Essex ones? A fascinating exercise in value judgements...

With the grammars, if you choose to go down that route, look VERY carefully at their individual admission criteria, aside from whether your child might pass the 11 plus itself. One school in Buckinghamshire insists on families being resident in their catchment area for 17 months before the secondary schools 'national offer day' of March 1st (essentially the March before the child joins the school in the following September). So, pretty much 2 years before going to the school itself.

The credit crunch in the UK is putting additional demand for places on grammar schools here, as families are finding it harder to fund private school fees and turning to grammar's as the alternative. So, some grammar's, where demand for places far outstrips supply have created eg additional residency criteria as above.

Loughton/ Buckhurst Hill/ Epping. All on the Central Line (underground) going into Liverpool St (couple of stops from Chancery Lane). Nice areas, very close to countryside and some good schools. Quite expensive, but not a patch on St Albans or Guildford!

West London, Ealing, Chiswick, Acton and Brentford are nice areas. OP will you be looking at Catholic, CofE or other faith schools?

Acton and Brentford are only nice by some stretching of the word.

Agree with angeleyes. Croydon has some fab areas. Check out west Wickham, Woodford or Coumadin op. Good schools and a very fast commute to London bridge too.