When we relocated, I looked on yell.com for all facilities I needed like schools, shops, dentists, doctors etc., found out if they had websites or were listed anywhere, googled the schools and dentists etc, looked at a similar site to Mumsnet that is split into "mini sites" for different areas (can't say name but you might know which one I mean), looked for any sites that were written by people who lived there, checked out upmystreet etc. As it was only 20 miles away, where we moved to, we drove round the area in the week and at weekends ("stalking it"), listening for things like loads of swearing or obvious bad behaviour from kids coming out of school, gangs of youths fighting, intimidating old ladies, hanging round, if people in the shops were friendly, the people who lived there were stopping to chat to each other. I looked at the county council website, the town council website, ofsted, league tables. Most useful was the websites and archives for local papers that had crime reports, school news etc. so we built up a picture of no go areas, high achieving schools, community links, places to go, things to do etc. Obviously people's opinions on "good schools" are different - I would class a "good school" as one that involves the kids in things in and out of school, has good exam results, has well behaved pupils, good policies for bullying, approachable staff, involve the parents in things, good secondary schools that the primary "feeds to", easy to get to - by car on foot etc. Just wanted to make sure we picked the right place..... :o