Tell me about Reading - possible move

[HerRoyalNotness]

Hi Reading people,
We are possibly moving to Reading in the next couple of months. We're currently abroad, but have our home up in the NE of England (I'm not from UK though, so not overly familiar with other parts of it).

We have 2 small children, one in Reception and one in daycare. We'd need to look at before and after school care, and childminders. Where in Reading would you live for good schools? We'd think about buying a home (4 bed), at a rough guess, up to about 280k. At this stage we don't know where the office would be located, so we'd look for school area first, affordability, then potential renting of it or resale when we move again in a couple of years. What is the market like there, I'm presuming it's robust as it's close to London. Are there any deals to be had?

How is it for families? What do you all do on the weekends? Are there school holiday programs?

Any tips and hints you can give us would be great. I'd like to get a good picture of the place before we move to lessen the time I'd need off work to sort everything out.

I will have a good trawl through the Local Threads too.

Thanks!

Well, Woodley was just named the second best place in the country to live with a family! That's on the east side of Reading, but comes under a different council (Wokingham). I don't know anything about primary schools I'm afraid, but there are several good secondary schools in Reading itself and the surrounding areas.

I think there's quite a lot to do here for small children, and it's very easy to get to other places from here ;-) Only thing that isn't easily accessible is the sea.

I've lived here (just west of the town centre - fairly rough area, but lively (I don't like the way there's no one on the streets after 7pm in the suburbs!) and we have the swimming pool very close, and several parks) for 12 years, but my youngest is now 10 so I can't be much help re little children.

Thanks ali, found out yesterday we didn't win the project. oh well, back to the drawing board!