Moving from London to the home counties... Where to start??

[hayleybalmers]

Hi all,

I would love any advice / suggestions regarding a move from our current home in Wandsworth to the home counties. Both my husband and myself are from the north of England so do not have any draws to any areas in the south. As we've always lived around Clapham / Wandsworth we don't really know many places further out. We also do NOT need to be more north for family etc. We don't really want to be in either Essex or Kent. An hour commute or a longer in to London would be fine as my husband does not need to travel in daily.

We've just had our first child and are planning a couple more so are now after more space and greenery. Good state primary schools are a must! We have a decent budget of around £1m and would like a 4 bed house for this, obviously the likes of Richmond are out of the question!

Any advice / thoughts would be much appreciated.

Regards

Hayley

I would like a utopia like that, where there is no selection and every school has a top set that will get the best from that group and also do a great job with the bottom set too. It would work.

But you have to ban faith, grammar and private schools and also find someway around the postcode wealth proximity problem, areas where wealthy families' children have a headstart at 22 months (research backed age).

My guess is this is never going to happen, so we are stuck with a system that works better for some than others (depending on where you live etc).

MN164
Private schools are a trivial problem - less than 3% of Hampshire resident kids attend them.
Faith schools : our Catholic schools are multifaith
Other selection : nope, does not exist here.
Catchments are miles and miles across and include flats to mansions
and there is enough flow between schools that even fusspots like me got both my kids into my first choice of school.

It does exist, but not near London and it does not make a frothy News story

TP

I have a London centric view. I think you're lucky in that situation, but as you clearly understand, its not so in London where the basic point is "pay to play", sadly.

MN164
Good friends of mine live in one of the pockets of South London that has no Secondary School unless they can get their kids through the superselective grammar exam.
There has been so much housing development that the catchment boundaries for ALL the other schools have shrunk away, leaving their whole road without cover.

To move to a guaranteed school place would cost them £300,000 extra
or they have to pay 2 x 7 years of school fees
They both work in Central London on salaries that do not cover the commute from somewhere with decent school cover.

My big concern is that policy makers cannot see that there is life beyond the Kingston bypass and so make decisions based on what they see, that are crackers from where a lot of the rest of us sit.

Talkin. On another thread "MN" talks about Liking Dame Alice Owen's school In Potters Bar , but then says she does not like selection. Schools such as Dame Alice Owen just as selective in their admissions (Possibly More so) of any Grammar School. The problem though is they are pretending to be a Comprehensive school by admitting 4 pupils 2% of low ability each year. This is only to make sure for political reasons they don't hit 100% @ GCSE (95%) 2014. They most be as Selective at sixth form level as any school" to achieve a 258 Point A- Grade average at A level.

Will you come out and say this is actually worse, than a grammar school which is at least up-front to what it is.

smoke
I have a much more nuanced view than you
in part because I attended selective private school
in part because I know how scary the choices are in London
in part because I know more than is healthy about East Kent education

I CBA to do an advanced search on you : but please , move away from Folkestone : it will do your head a world of good

I think DAO is a great school.

I think parents should make the right choice for their kids.

I think we should all hope for all kids to get the best. Mandatory comprehensive might be the idealist way of doing that.

But I know this isn't the system we have and, in that context, I like DAO.

I don't think its contradictory to want a different system whilst having preferences in an existing system. One can be an idealist and a pragmatist at the same time.

I would presume that if you didn't have a child who would 'make the cut' then you would move elsewhere in time. If you are choosing to move to somewhere as expensive as TW and/or with the budget the OP has, then that shouldn't be a worry for them. Unfair as that may be.

Where we currently live there isn't a single decent comprehensive school in the area - unless you count a school where 38% of kids get 5 GCSEs and only 2 went to university last year (and no it wasn't Oxbridge or even an RG). I'm a school governor at one local secondary and even with a really good HT and very committed staff, progress is hopeless and no way would I send DD there if I have other options.

Life isn't fair, and education in this country certainly isn't, whether that inequality is due to income, house price, faith, academic selection or whatever. Fact is that the vast majority of parents will chose to do the best they can for their child.

Accepted Talkin that you have greater variety of knowledge about different schools/areas. I had to Look at the definition of "Nuanced"