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!

I don't know schools in Beds - but there are some OK towns within an hour of London and property is cheaper than Essex / Kent / Herts so definitely think this is a good area for your search.

I suggested Bishops Stortford upthread which is 45 mins from Liverpool St via the Stansted Express (Circa £32 a day return from memory, but cheaper after 9:30). Your housing budget could be an issue though.
Schools wise the Sunday Times power list in order, is usually like this.
Hockerill (around 50th best school in the country), but you need to live within metres of it to be in catchment.
Private - Bishops Stortford College.
Girls State - Herts and Essex
Boys State - Bishops Stortford high School
St Marys (catholic) and Leventhorpe in nearby Sawbridgeworth also make the list some years.
Birchwood is also a good school, but less favoured by pushy parents & Avanti has newly opened this year and seems to have good facilities.
Their admission policies would give the feeder primary schools.

Another option is Saffron Walden - really good non selective school https://www.swchs.net/ and an hour from London. the town is pricy though.
You could consider the village of Thaxted about 6 miles away for less expensive property https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/find.html?locationIdentifier=REGION%5E24161&sortType=1&propertyTypes=&mustHave=&dontShow=&furnishTypes=&keywords=

You could also consider Great Dunmow as a slightly more affordable option. No railway station, but driveable to Chelmsford or Bishops Stortford. One secondary, Helena Romanas, and I don't think I've ever seen it on a best schools list but I know people whose children have gone there and are happy.

To give you an idea @dzara something like this in Chippenham is £1300 and 1hr 12 mins on train into London . (10 minutes into Bath) - but the difference is chalk and cheese

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/138294671

Yes, a lot of people and businesses put counties in postal addresses, even though postal counties (which confusingly didn’t always align with local government counties) were abolished years ago.

But for the purposes of local government, education, police, ambulance service, fire brigade, transport etc, Hampton Court is definitely in London. Historically it was in Surrey, but then so was Southwark and Rotherhithe.

@OdeToBarney - we're up in Sanderstead and we're in the priority area for admissions for Wally girls, and would be able to get to the other Sutton grammars within a reasonable amount of time.

I've not seen anything particularly negative about Riddlesdown but it turns out good results for a comprehensive school - consistently above average - and has generally good behaviour from what I know from friends who have DC there.

@BringOnSummerHolidays , the boundary is the bridge at hampton court so the houses around the palace are in Greater London and the houses on the other side of the bridge are in Surrey.

That's really helpful, thank you!

Dulwich in London has fantastic state schools both at primary and secondary. Look at the Charter North Dulwich, Kingsdale, Dulwich Hamlet, Judith Kerr.

For a two bed rent would be circa £2,000 a month though!

@dzara , sorry to be negative but I think you will need access to 1 years rent if you don't have a job lined up, plus you will need references. You would do best to live with family while you job search and look for schools. If you don't have family here perhaps postpone the move until the dc are older.

Sorry to bring a negative vibe to this, but I just wanted to make the point: it's all very well asking about areas with good schools, but the fact is that there are good and less good schools in pretty much every area. Just because an area has some good schools, it doesn't mean that your children would get a place at one of them! I think you may be better off relaxing your expectations on this point and choosing somewhere that you can afford to live and that you would be happy in. As PPs have said, commuting into London is not the same as living in London, and it will prove expensive if you're doing it multiple days a week. If I were in your shoes, I'd be researching different towns/cities to find out 1) what the job market was like for my line of work, and 2) what rental prices were like. I'd then look at schools but keep an open mind and not get hung up on a particular one.
You could live and work somewhere totally different and still visit London once or twice a month for a day / night out.

Please don't apologise @dertex and @tennissquare , I wouldn't call what you said negative but realistic and it is on my mind, thank you. I reassure you, I have an idea on my job prospects, I wouldn't just jump in the dark, although I admire people who do just that lol. For the rent, according to my research, some lets are for short-term only anyway. Good schools are not only an indication of good schools it's also an indication of good neighborhoods (generally speaking of course).

Posters who pointed out the postcode confusion, you nailed it! Even rightmove has the postcodes scrambled I think, actually I don't know what algorithm it uses for the addresses but I did type "Sutton" in one of my searches, but the flat posted by @Crikeyalmighty never came up, even though the postcode is in Sutton 🤔

Thanks @Dinopawus for the helpful suggestions! Funny I always thought Bishops Stortford was in Herts!

Sorry just saw posts about number of bedrooms, well ideally 3 obviously, but could do with a 2 bedroom (spacious though lol) temporarily. Private garden space, no not necessary especially if it needs maintenance.

Somebody mentioned ZipCar, I understand it's a car share scheme, that's a good idea!

Bishop's Stortford is in Herts, but only just - very close to the Essex border.

Best thing to do @dzara is set the search 1 Mike from the area, rather than area only- hope you like the flats I posted

Do you have to be near London? You don't have a job yet and while London has more opportunity it isn't the only major employment area.

You could get mych better value and less time commuting if you look at other cities.

What area of employment are you looking for? Maybe we could help with suggestions?

You mention short-term lets.

You need to watch that you have chosen an area with reasonably high turnover of rentals in your price bracket. Otherwise you could find you have nightmare school situation where you can't get to them easily. Or, given your children's ages, you get one into a secondary and find the younger one is not in catchment.

@ILookAtTheFloor thanks!
@Crikeyalmighty Yes, been fiddling around with the settings and it seems that I'm on my way of becoming an expert in the geography of England!
@OhBeAFineGuyKissMe very kind of you, thanks. But no need to give you another headache, am more clued up in job search and you've all been very helpful already!
@OhCrumbsWhereNow Good point!

You all have funny nicknames here, quite long too! Lovely helpful forum! Glad I signed up.

@dzara You can put whole counties in Right move too, like Surrey or London or Herts etc- I found that quite useful when you are open minded.

@Crikeyalmighty I did figure that out, thanks! You seem to be an expert in rightmove, so maybe you can help me with these questions which have been bugging me as I was browsing the site:

Some properties have gas heaters, isn't that a health risk?
I do prefer cooking on a gas stove, but for heating, radiators are safer.
Also, some properties don't put their energy rating. That's annoying.
Is there a way of finding out a landlord's or a letting agency reputation before signing with them?

@dzara with regard to agencies, just Google the name and you will often find sites come up- I think there is once called 'alltheagents' or something similar. Almost impossible to check up on landlords sadly!!

Gas boilers are very very common in UK, less common in flats though.

Not really. Tbh the rental market is so hot you may not have vast choice of properties. Many areas you need to be prepared to offer over the asking rent and be in a good position with references etc. Gas heaters are rare, gas boilers or gas central heating common and safe. I thought epc ratings were obligatory now.

I wouldn't be confident that Rightmove's ideas of counties actually line up with the realities of local government, which is important if you are concerned about schools etc. For example if I put in "Surrey", it will happily list properties in Surbiton, which is in London.

Bourton on Water Gloucestershire for the amazing Cotswold School, non selective excellent results. Excellent primaries too. Here’s a 3 Bed rental. Train to London from Moreton 90 mins. https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/138242912