Considering move to Oxford(shire) - need advice!

[chillipickle]

We are considering a move to Oxford, or possibly one of the surrounding villages. We're not total strangers to the city, having lived there for a couple of years, but that was 10 years ago and our priorities then were very different.

We have two preschool children and a budget of around £300K for a house (possibly up to about £320K).

I have seen several recommendations for Headington as a family-friendly place to live. We could probably find a house there within our budget, and it seems there are some nice primary schools in the area. Can anyone comment on secondary schools? Cherwell gets good reports, but the catchment area only takes in part of Headington.

If we want to be in the Cherwell catchment, it seems our best bet might be to live in Marston, in which case I understand St Nicholas is a good primary school. However I've no idea if this is a nice place to live.

The alternative (which OH is more keen on) is to look further afield and buy a bigger house in one of the outlying villages. At the moment Eynsham is coming out well for schools, but I'm not so sure about village life and commuting into Oxford, so would like to properly explore the options in the city first.

Any advice would be very welcome!

Marston is fine, if a bit boring. :)

Hmm, boring. At least you didn't say crime-ridden or downright scary.

Good point, Tarka, our elder DC will only be starting school in 2012, so not into secondary until... I dunno... a good few years yet.

I had heard anecdotally that Cheney wasn't great, but didn't know about the change of Head, so that might be one to watch.

Ideally we'd like to buy a house that we can stay in for the long term, but if factoring in secondary school catchment means we're a long way from things to do with the children, then that sort of defeats the point of living there.

It's a tough one really. I can see that we could have a nice house and good schools in Eynsham/Witney, but part of the reason for wanting to move is to reduce our commuting time by working and living in the same city. Currently I work in London and OH works in Oxford, and we live in the middle so commute for just over an hour each. I can't see that our lives would improve greatly if we swapped that arrangement for hour-long commutes in crawling traffic.

And the other reason for wanting to move is to enjoy a more vibrant local scene. We are currently in Buckinghamshire, and our town has very good schools but, putting it mildly, lacks the cultural interest of Oxford. If our top priority is to get our DCs into the best school, then we should probably stay put.

Think I will look a bit further at Headington anyway.

We used to live in Marston, just below the hospital. I agree that it is, or was, dullish but fine. I don't know whether the growth of Oxford Brookes in the area has increased the number of students in the area though, as we moved some years ago. That might make it less dull but rather noisier.

The commute into the city centre is very quick and scenic by bike through the University Parks. We had just one baby by the time we moved away, so have no direct experience of the schools, but I have a friend who lives in Old Marston, the villagey bit (very pleasant, but possibly expensive). She has two children at St. Nick's, and seems to have been generally happy with it.

We live in North Oxfordshire, the schools up here are all good or excellent. You can get very rural just a few miles out.

Houses in north oxf likely to be well out of budget, i would think. Another vote for headington. 2 good primaries, secondary well, hmm... but some years off. Oxf academy apparently also planning to pull its socks up. Easy access to city, better than elsewhere for commute to london as express buses pass right through. Good community feel. I would vote strongly against living outside and commuting in. Have a colleague who lives Eynsham, reg takes a good hour to get to work, and that's at 730.

Eynsham and Witney do have excellent secondary schools (St Barts and Wood Green respectively) but the commute is a killer.

Have you thought about somewhere like the villages on the Oxford side of Eynsham? Once you're past Eynsham on the A40 the commute into Oxford isn't actually too bad, it's the Witney side of things that are awful. I can commute from Witney to Headington in 45 mins in the morning (back routes).

Where do you work in Oxford? Bear in mind that commuting within the city can take forever as well, so if you're on the right side of the city it can make all the difference (as I'm sure you already know)

OH is currently working in central/north Oxford, but that could change, and if I was looking for work locally (far preferable to commuting to London) then it could be in any part of the city, or even outside. So there's no fixed job that we need to commute to.

Agree with wearymum that north Oxford is not going to be within our reach.

I'm wondering now about the dullness of Marston, and whether people in Oxford have a different scale for judging such things. If it's only boring in comparison to other parts of Oxford, it might not seem that bad to us, coming from a not particularly exciting town in Bucks.

Difficult to think of an objective measure of dullness by which to judge it though. Is it sleepy and suburban rather than dreary and depressing?

Marston's dullness is probably relative, chillipickle. There are a lot of houses and not much else; no strong identity like East Oxford or Jericho and no centre to speak of, like Headington. It is very suburban, but pretty close to the city centre.

When we bought there, it represented an affordable house reasonably close to jobs and friends and it worked for us. I think I'd rate it as more exciting than a quiet town in Bucks (or a medium-sized village in Warks, my current location), because of the ease of access to more interesting bits.

Marston's fine.. it's in the catchment for Cherwell and 10 mins away from all the other interesting bits in Oxford :)