Areas with excellent non-selective secondary schools in England?

[dzara]

Dear all,

I will be relocating to England in a couple of months and I am already panicking because all the information about schools in daunting. As this is usually one of the main criteria for narrowing down options, I would be grateful if you could point me to areas which:

• are within 1:30 h max travel to London by train
• have a good selection of non selective secondary schools
• give me the option of transferring to a grammar school in sixth form if GCSE scores allow obviously

I would prefer not to drive if possible unless it's unavoidable. So good public transport links would be a huge advantage as well as access to shops and amenities. Easy access to countryside would be lovely too.

That's it, not too hard to please am I! 😂

Many thanks!

London schools are generally excellent, they regularly out perform the rest of the country. But you might not want to live in London.

how old are your children? Good schools will likely have waiting lists and do change over the years.

I know yes and I do love London, lived in Islington 15 years ago. But it's way off my budget especially the nicer areas (my budget is around 1200 pounds/month max). My kids are 8 and 9. Most people prefer to live in the suburbs now from what I hear as London has become too stressful.

Cambridge & surrounding villages for your criteria. No grammar for sixth form, but a choice of excellent state sixth form colleges in Cambridge and easy commute to London

Is your budget for rent or mortgage repayments?

You'd need to go midlands or north of England to rent a family sized property for that price in a good school catchment area, not London or south east.

If you're buying, look at south east London - Penge, Crystal Palace, Streatham. Lots of good schools and some affordable housing.

There are very limited state grammar schools in SE - Kent, Sutton, Bucks, Essex for example. In those areas you tend to find less high performing non selectives (because higher performing pupils are largely elsewhere) You might be able to access one from over a county boundary. Ie live in East Grinstead for Tonbridge schools.

Apart from London there aren't areas of good schools but rather lots of good schools in different places. Download the locating app and go to http://www.gov.uk/school-performance-tables.

To be close to London look at:
Surrey
Kent
Reading
Essex
London suburbs (depending on budget)

On locating..

This will be a starting point.

I agree, your budget isn't going to cover rent on a family home in the SE, have you spent much time on the Rightmove website ? You would do better to move to the North of England and build the extortionate cost of the commute into your budget, ie somewhere like Darlington.

We have a good state school - Riddlesdown - near us and are on the border for the Sutton super selective. Look at Riddlesdown/Sanderstead.

Not sure how you'll get on with your budget though, the cheapest three bed near us is £1900 and we're right by Croydon 😬

Solihull. Has several excellent state schools and can get to London in 1-2 hours depending on what train you get. Not sure if it would suit your budget though.

Bristol
Bath and North East Somerset.

Don't use the grammar school system. They're also about an hour and a half from London Paddington.

Fleet in Hampshire might fit the bill 2 good schools. Fast(ish) train into London.

But budget for rent might be tricky?

£1,200 isn't enough for rent, close to London and excellent schools. Excellent schools tend to push prices up! It would be enough for a mortgage if you had about 50% deposit.

Hills Road, whilst a sixth form college rather than a school, is effectively "grammar" in that it is very selective. (There are plenty of other good sixth form options, too.) Agree that there are plenty of good comprehensives.
The better connected villages may be beyond your budget, though.

The Huntingdon area is cheaper and within the commuting time for London. The schools there probably have less impressive results than some of those nearer Cambridge, which benefit from the large proportion of kids whose parents are working in the university/tech/biotech companies.

Hello all, thanks for the helpful suggestions! I was sure many of you have been through this tough decision and sharing experiences really is a tremendous help for the likes of me as I don't know areas outside London!
I think some posters have not understood me: I actually want to avoid the selective grammar schools regions because the other schools in the same area would be automatically disadvantaged which is a problem if your kid doesn't make it to the grammars.
From what I gathered: Kent and Bucks are grammar school areas so to avoid (by my standards 😅). Correct?
Solihull is a bit further out, I prefer somewhere in the counties surrounding London.
Cambridgeshire sounds like a very good option, I will explore it further.
Don't know much about Essex, Surrey, Reading, Riddlesdown and Fleet, I'll look into them thanks.
How much rent would be required for the good London districts (school wise) for a 2 bedroom apartment?

PS. For those who asked, I am looking to rent first to give me more flexibility as buying is a huge commitment.

I did search on rightmove but not much comes up, not sure if it's the summer period that is quiet or areas with good schools just don't have rent options come up that frequently (I did play around with the budget and stretched it just to see what comes up).

Best of luck but I think you are going to find the rental market tricky. If you have any family go in the direction of where they are based.

Near the better good schools in Reading area you are going to struggle to find a property (2 bed flat) for that budget, Reading does have 2 grammar schools, but not a selective area overall, highly competitive entry. Some schools in Reading Borough are not great, but the LA areas around do. Possibly going out to Newbury/Thatcham you could get in catchment for their better schools within budget.

I fear it is more that your budget will not stretch far in London or SE.

I live in quite a cheap area relatively speaking and £1200 would still be a struggle for a family sized home to rent here, you might need to manage your expectations as to what you can get for that.

(And that's the midlands, further than you want to be, though it is still within 1.5 hours of London).

Leicester is not in the expensive Home Counties @dzara but the non-stop train to London only takes an hour. You could find a house for that budget there. No idea about schools tho, but there must be some good ones.

@clary flipping expensive train though 😬

Haha true, but I inferred that the op was only planning on doing the journey every couple if weeks or so. If it's any kind of regular commute, 1.5 hours on the train sounds like a mare.

@clary yes very true!

North Wiltshire - Chippenham/Malmesbury - great schools and just over an hour to Paddington, 15 mins to Bath, and extra 10 mins to Bristol.
Close to M4 if you want to travel but also gorgeous countryside on your doorstep.