Moving areas- advice about schools please.

[debsl75]

Hi, we are considering moving to the country (currently in a London borough) but moving the kids schools is causing me great anguish. We are not completely sure where we are going at this time, all we have worked out is that we will be leaving our rented house (myself, dh,dd,ds) and moving with my mum and her husband (selling their house, long story) to rent a large country property/small holding.
I really need advice from someone who has moved area and schools. Dd is 13 and will be going into y9 and ds is in y1. Would I need to apply to LEA for the areas we are looking at to see if there are any places available in local schools? What happens if there are no available places in an area that we can afford to move to? Money will be an issue so private education isn't an option.
This is really messing with my head and putting a big cloud over the move.
We are considering this move because we are finding it very hard to live in London, the cost of rent is through the roof, our wages are all spent on rent that goes up by more than the wages do. Whats left goes on childcare and we have no real quality of life. If this move goes ahead we will be able to share the cost of rent, no childcare costs as my mum will be available for that and hopefuly we will be able to spend some good quality time together. We will also be able to indulge in some of our hobbies (chicken keeping) that our current neighbours strongly disapprove of!!! And just having a small part of "the good life".
Any advice on moving schools and how to go about it would be great.
Thanks for reading.

Hi, I am also thinking about moving. I rang the LEA who were able to tell me about availability of school places, and have downloaded an application form from their website. There's one place available in dd's year in the school we are interested in, but of course no guarantee that it will still be free when if and when we do move. It does make the idea of moving hard, but in your case, it sounds as though you have really good reasons for moving, so your children may benefit, even if there has to be a compromise regarding the particular schools they go to.

Bear in mind too that in many areas, especially rural, there isn't the same scarcity of places as seems to be the case in London. In N Derbys/S Yorks there are still YR places at Outstanding schools

We moved out of London just over 10 years ago initially like many to Kent but the grammar schools make education especially at second level a nightmare. We then we moved again three years ago. We now live in a small market town think Hot Fuzz on our doorstep is the counties best performing comps and high up in national league tables too. On enquiring about

Where is that button that makes you accIdently post before you finished writing??
Anyway

Where is that button that makes you accIdently post before you finished writing??
Anyway on enquiring we were told that as we lived in the town the school had to guarantee us a place (we were loooking for yr 9) even if they were full which they weren't.
Our town is small (population 4000 yes that's 4000 not 40 000) unbelievably middle class someone told me recently that according to police statistics we've had no crimes for four months. Its ancient beautiful civilised dog friendly and generally friendly everyone says hello to everyone else. We don't lock our doors when we pop out to the shops; we've got a selection of shops butchers baker women's cloths shop card shop independent department store small supermarket Indian and Chinese take away cages and a top restaurant library leisure centre and now even a rural cinema public transport is buses so cars are essential. In the past I've lived in very rural communities and of course London for me (I favour the middle of no where) and my family this is a happy compromise. Oh and London ( in good traffic) is 90 mins away but we've two very famous cities with fab shops (ones a world heritage site) and plenty of culture within a 35 min drive.
We rent out a 1 bedroom broom cupboard on the edge of London for £1000 per month here that gets you a nice three/four bedroom family home.
If you want to know exactly where we live do PM me.

Cages not cages!!

Why won't the bloody computer recognise the word cafe?
Cafe not cages!!!!!

Oh forgot to add neighbours have chickens no one c

Oh forgot to add neighbours have chickens no one complains although the threatened arrival of Waitrose has nearly caused a riot. As said earlier we are Hot Fuzz!

Its what all those who escape London dream of the "rural idyl."
I would say from the point of view as an ex Londoner its only down fall is its not exactly multi cultured and there is a small town ethos here.

Happy - does it start with M and end in Y?

Oh, I want to know where it is too.......

pleeeease.......

Im not going to completely out myself as I've said PM if you want to know. Im pretty sure our town is not unique. Across England there are plenty of similar places. We stumbled on it by accident having originally planned to move to another town 10 miles away larger but still pretty good.
I think the question all those desperate to escape London need to ask is this what they are really looking for? My DH regularly works in London and I suspect would miss it more if he didn't. I personally couldn't care less if I never went to London again. He likes the buzz and excitement of it the variety the culture me I just love rural life the scenery the peace the birds singing etc. Can you up sticks and move to a place you don't know? Make new friends leave your family in particular ageing parents. I'm always surprised by the number of people who I talk to who cant or wont. Be honest with yourself. The biggest downside of living in a rural area is driving and pretty rubbish public transport; we both drive at least 20 miles (although it only takes 1/2 an hour) to work something you would just never do if you lived in London and obviously work opportunities are more limited and wages for clerical jobs and skilled manual jobs we understand are significantly lower than in London. I'm really lucky I can easily find work anywhere and as I've said we've two famous cities close by and many commute to them but parking is of course a nightmare. Are nearest train station is about 7 miles away and not a particularly helpful line to get to a main line its a 10 mile journey with expensive parking at the other end and an expensive train ticket. Life here is not exciting and I've noticed from talking to friends that as their children grow up and leave home that they feel if its a bit smalltownsvile here. I'm not trying to put people off the "rural idyl" and we left London primarily because I didn't want to bring my children up in a city and certainly for children it offers so much not just better schools with vacancies but its without a doubt a safer environment theres more space. But no world famous museums 10 minutes away, no children theatre round the corner or play centres down the road. If your child wants to pursue any kind of extra curricular activity that slightly different from the usual your going to have to get into your car and drive at least 20 miles they are always going to have to rely in you to take them until they too can drive.
Having said all this the other evening I was walking my dogs and it was the weekly bell ringing practice the birds were singing the sun was shinning and I said to my DH nothing would get me back into London.

4000 people and you have a department store!

I reckon it's Arundel, W sussex...

Ah no, the railway line is wrong. Bother. It's somewhere smug and southern though.

Happygardening, this sounds perfect. Will PM you for location. Lots of points to pick up on though, firstly you are very funny I mean cages??? thought it might have been some kind of country slang . Extra curricular activities are all on our door step but because it's a Royal Borough it's all far too expensive so sadly unless I traul the net looking for free trials the kids miss out anyway. I take my kids everywhere in the car anyway (well pretty much) because although we have great transport links it's far too dangerous to let the kids use it in fear they will be attacked!! DD was coming home on the bus from town at the weekend with friends and a man got on the bus and approached a young woman and started "chating her up". My DD said he was using nasty language and being very forceful, nobody on the bus helped her so she went downstairs and got the driver to call the police. The police stopped the bus and the man and friend were arrested because when they were searched (on the bus in full view of everyone) they found drugs on him!!! And as for "smalltownsville" we live in a parish area and DS attends local CofE school which is one form entry and it's very "tight" and if ya face don't fit......
To be perfectly honest I'm sick of the self indulgent, stuck up place I live in. I'm sick of my neighbours who do nothing but moan about the way others live their lives when they're far from perfect themselves, they are constantly arguing. Their bbq is on our boundry fence near the house and all summer long they insist on burning their food daily in the garden, I've had washing lines full of clothes out at the time and it's all had to go through the wash again, i have to close my windows to stop the smell. She home tutors and we constantly have to ask them to get visitors to move their cars off of our drop curb so we can get in/out. One reason I allow my cockrale (boy chicken!!!) to crow all day!!!!
Work... we'll we don't earn much above the national minimum wage anyway so to be honest me and DH don't really care what we do to earn money, we'll clean toilets, stack shelves, work outdoors. In the past i have worked in schools, looked after the elderly and looked after animals. DH can turn his hand to most things, he's worked on the railways, been a multi drop driver, gardener and general dogs body. We'll be renting and sharing the cost with my mum and her DH so as long as we can cover the rent and bills, we don't really care.
Basicaly we are sick of the rat race and fancy a bit of what you have, it sounds idilic.