Southville or Bishopston? Confused over price and schools.

[Sourdough123]

Hi All, new to this forum and need some help. My dh, dd and I are currently renting in the Chessels and are ready to buy (inheritance). We really like it here in Bs3 but my dd is soon coming up on school age and we have been scared Away by talk of how hard it is to get into ashton gate/Southville primaries. For that reason we have been looking at buying in bishopston/ St. Andrews as an alternative and have found a lovely but v pricey house. Price differenc between it and what we would buy down here is about £80k. Love north street so much but can't work our how we feel about Glo Rd- too many students, too many bars? Is schooling really that diff to get into in bs3 (heard ashton gate is expanding which will help)? Some advice much appreciated as we are so torn! Thanks, carol.

You need to get the facts. People do lots of research around schools when moving. You need to get the data from the council re how many school places there will be at the schools you are interested in, when your child is due to start including the expansions. What are the admission criteria and which admission category your child would be in. Also, and crucially, how far from the school children lived who got places last September who were in your category. You can then assess how near the schools you need to be. Do this for both areas you are interested in. All this info is online in the primary admissions info of the council website or you can call them
Consider secondary too,bs3 is not well served for secondaries.

Good luck!

I am not sure the school situation is any better in Bishopston, TBH. Most good primaries and secondaries are also over subscribed. I would second doing your research very carefully!

Thanks for your help. It is a tough decision. We have done our research on the schools - it's more a question of not knowing which area to choose as we like them both! Big factor is that there is virtually nothing coming up for sale in Southville suitable for us and that is within the ' closest distances' table for Southville and ashton gate from last yr. I know they are both expanding but even so. The house in St. Andrews is within closest distance for both bishop rd and Sefton park. I just can't drag myself away from Southville! Think it is going to be bs7 though but we'll keep looking down here.

Which secondary schools would you be considering in both those locations?

I would be a bit surprised if St Andrews is close enough for Bishop Road, but maybe it is now that they have 4 classes? You might also be close enough to the Dolphin School.

For secondary you might be close enough to Cotham. Not sure though as several friends in bishopston/cotham missed out on cotham this year and have been allocated Fairfield. I do believe Fairfield is pulling out all the stops to become slog more desirable and are forecasting pretty good gcse results for this year (65% 5 A*-C inc maths and English).

Oops bishopston/st Andrews not bishopston/cotham

What is your budget and size requirements? There are some very good primaries further east from the ones you name: Parson Street, St Mary Redcliffe, Victoria Park and Hillcrest are all on a par with Southville and Windmill Hill/Totterdown have some nice family homes of a similar style to the Southville areas, and you'd still be within striking distance of the lovely North Street. You are right to be thinking carefully about this, there are very few places in BS3 where you genuinely have a choice of schools, the furthest-distances-accepted are often very small and there even some houses/streets which lie in a black-zone just outside the minimum distances for all nearby schools.

Bishop Road only has such a large closest-distance because it is 4-form entry, twice the size of most primary schools. Gloucs Road and North Street do have a lot in common and you would probably feel happy enough there. However, personally I wouldn't be happy with getting a place at Bishop Road - with such a large catchment area there will be loads of school-run issues relating to driving and parking, and could be as much as 3km away from any friends my DC made among the 119 other children in the year, rather than everyone being within walking distance of each other which is what you get with the small-catchment-area schools.

I would be very surprised if people are driving 3k to bishop rd. the local demand is very high. Bishop rd doesn't take much to get grid locked with traffic though

3km refers to the fact that the furthest-distance for which places were allocated to Bishop Road last year was 1.8km (see here, so it's entirely possible that you could be over 3km from your friend's house if they live in one direction and you live in the other.

Just moving to Southville.
Wanted any tree surgeons that come with recommendations please?
Also anyone know of any good cleaners?
Painters and decorators - any recommendations please?
Many thanks.
kate

kate you might want to post on the local Facebook group, Southville, Ashton and Bedminster