Please help me decide home location: Bucks vs Barnet

[mumnme]

Hi mums, we want to buy a home.
Our kid will start primary school soon and we are academically oriented - going to send our child to state school only. And would like to give our child the opportunity to get into a grammar school if they'd prefer in the future. I understand it's too early to think about this but we do not want to be under pressure for moving houses at high school stage.
We commute to central london for work thrice a week.

I'd appreciate if you can help me with any of the following questions:

1. What are your views on on the area we should pick: Southgate vs Amersham?
2. Does the quality of state primary teachers and education differ in Bucks vs Barnet?
3. Any parents with first hand experience of Little Chalfont Primary School or Ashmole 'Primary' School.. I'd love to hear your reviews of the school(s).

Thank you for your help.

I know Southgate and Amersham and would definitely pick Amersham just because it's a nicer place to live.

Anecdotally, my friends with children near Southgate were not impressed by the schools they attended. Several moved their kids to new schools, some went private because they weren't happy with the state provision. My friends in Bucks were largely content with theirs.

Thank you for sharing this @LauderSyme. Very helpful. Can you please elaborate more on why you say Amersham is a nicer place to live than Southgate?

Amersham. Much much nicer area and has a lovely village feel. You also have better access to more grammar schools.

I don’t really know Southgate, but Amersham is a lovely town. The non-grammar upper school is also pretty well-regarded, which isn’t always the case in lots of areas in Bucks.
However a lot could change over the next 7 years before your DC is heading to secondary school!

It might just be me or my experience, which may not be everyone's, but Amersham feels like it has more of a local community feel and villagey atmosphere, more pride in itself, more green spaces and is generally cleaner and better kept.

Southgate feels to me like more of a nondescript London suburb with more noise and traffic.

When is “soon”? Hopefully not Sept 25!!? No spaces left where you would want to be! If you are looking for the future, Amersham or little Chalfont but you MUST pay attention to catchment and admissions info. Amersham has pretty good schools but so do some of the villages. Sept 26 entry you need to get moving! Finding a house can be challenging.

Not Southgate unless you like very built up areas, noice and traffic.

It really depends on whether you want to live in London or not. They are two completely different areas in terms of vibe. We live in Southgate and I would disagree about the lack of community. We have found it to be an incredibly friendly place where we know lots of people and can’t leave the house without bumping into someone we know and having a chat. Our neighbours are lovely too and we enjoy the diversity in terms of community, restaurants etc. Our children attend the local state primary and have loved it. The area around Southgate Green has a villagey feel and some really lovely roads to live on but there’s no escaping that it’s a busy London suburb with traffic and the high street isn’t exactly quaint! We have been here for 12 years and would never move, but it’s not for everyone. Ashmole (primary and secondary) is highly regarded and it is well located for several grammar and state selective options for secondary although they are super selective.

Amersham is lovely too. I’d go with where you prefer to live as a family.

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts. How has your experience been with the services (uber, deliveroo, etc) in Amersham and Little Chalfont ?

@mumnme. ??? What an odd question. Cannot imagine Amersham residents are bothered!

There must be a few who don't have their own transport and hate cooking, surely...?

@MarchingFrogs You might be surprised to learn we have taxis. Some restaurants deliver. Indian etc. I think Waitrose might use them but, in general, if you can afford a house in Amersham you have a car! Taxis if not. Or standard home delivery. The best restaurants don’t do take outs as far as I know.

NB, Southgate is Enfield, not Barnet. You could have access to Latymer (where I went), but that's staking quite a lot on getting in, though Enfield does have other good schools.

Part of Southgate is in Barnet, and part in Enfield. Ashmole School is in Barnet.

Yes, you are right! I just always think of Southgate as Enfield, and the Barnet bit as New Southgate, but Ashmole is indeed both Southgate and Barnet!

Amersham is nice but a bit stuck up. Chesham is friendlier but maybe a bit rougher round the edges. Little Chalfont School is absolutely atrocious and I would avoid at all costs.

I'd look at:

Chesham Bois C of E
Brushwood
Robertswood
Ley Hill
Chestnut Lane/Elangeni

Secondary wise, it's a great place to be if your child is grammar stream, with Dr Challoners and Chesham Grammar School. The Amersham School is a very good school if they don't qualify for Grammar School so they have options either way.

@MrsSunshine2b There is no objective data that backs up your assertion about LC Primary. It’s full and in 2023, 17/32 dc passed for a grammar school. More by appeal. It might not suit everyone but the assertion that it’s atrocious is just ridiculous.

People who have enough money to live in Amersham are standard people. Chestnut lane and Elengeni have been popular for decades but living in catchment will matter for all of these. Getting a space mid KS is very difficult.

Chesham was always more industrial with many more cheaper houses. It’s a fairly mixed community but also much more mixed primary schools due to the village schools taking a lot of the upwardly mobile DC! They don’t populate the town schools, they go up the hills to Ley Hill, Chesham Bois, Brushwood, Chartridge and Hawridge and Cholesbury. Hence the poster doesn’t mention the town schools. Only Brushwood Junior is considered to be Chesham. Have a look at some of the town schools and it’s a very mixed bag and has been for decades. Some schools have had massive issues for 40 years!

My objective data on LC is that I've seen them from the inside out and I was actually there on the day that they got the "Outstanding" OFSTED. Smoke and mirrors doesn't even begin to cover it.

Chestnut Lane and Elangeni are nice but they are overhyped imo. With the catchment they have, they should be better than they are. However, they are well-resourced and have nice kids.

Brushwood is gorgeous.

Waterside is much better IRL than it appears on paper. The staff really care about the kids, although there are some social problems.

Sorry only just picking up on this thread.

Uber don't operate in Amersham @mumnme. There are taxis obviously but no Uber.

deliveroo works just fine.

I don’t think LC has been inspected since 2011. So your info is wildly out of date. Of course so is Ofsted’s. I also suggest you look at the government data for LC that’s far more up to date. It’s a very high achieving school. That’s not going to suit everyone but it’s very popular.

Waterside on the other hand has pulled itself up from being a total basket case. It’s now an academy. Was pretty close to closure at one stage. In 2016 it was inadequate in all areas. It’s got nearly 33% fsm. It was struggling for decades prior to 2016. It has improved but it will need to keep that going. Parent view isn’t a ringing endorsement. Other schools have a far better track record but might not have vacancies.

Some of the other schools do have vacancies, including Chestnut Lane, which surprises me. Elangeni doesn’t. Look at the BCC vacancies list for up to date info. Some of the village schools have vacancies and a falling birth rate might account for this.

@MrsSunshine2b can you say more..what is it about LC primary school that is not good?

But as @TizerorFizz says, Little Chalfont hasn't had an Ofsted since 2011. 14 years ago is a long time to be passing judgment on the current state of the school, surely?

That's just about the time that DD2 went to secondary school and several children who became good friends of hers had been to Little Chalfont. I don't recall there being any stories, rumours etc about the school having problems.

@mumnme I think you need to be somewhat cautious about what this poster is telling you, maybe there's an agenda... FWIW, because obviously it's entirely anecdotal, but my DD's friends who had been to Little Chalfont were always welcome in my home - and still are now they're all in their mid-20s.

No agenda here at all, I left the area a few years ago.

Ivingswood and Little Chalfont are the only two schools I'd avoid for my own kids at all costs.

@MrsSunshine2b I see that you have posted a similar incident for Chalfont Valley E-Act school where your teacher friend was hit with a metre stick and the staff was burnt out (Link: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/education/5248075-info-on-little-chalfont-chalfont-valley-e-act-area-new-development)

Can i check whether:

• this same incident happened in both schools, as per you?
• or are you only talking about one of these schools and misread one school name for the other?