moving to southampton

[avidknitter]

Hi, my husband has been offered a job in Southampton city centre and we will be moving there in the next couple of months. Initially renting but planning to buy once we settle in.
I'm hoping for some advice on where might be a good place to live within the city or nearby. We have two smallies, ds 3yrs and dd 5months so a priority is to be near good primary schools. Will be trying to live car free, so reliant on public transport. Thanks!

Hi,
I live on the east side of the city not too far from Bitterne. There are excellent primary schools on this side of the water, but the choice of secondary schools is not that great imo, although that is also a city wide thing. Things will probably be very different by the time your children need to go to secondary school. Bitterne and Woolston both have good bus links to most areas of the city. There are also a lot of groups providing different activities for pre-school children.

Have you any knowledge already of Southampton? Is your husband's job literally in the town centre or one of the surrounding areas?

How about Romsey or North Baddesley - a bit more rural and quieter with - good schools and not far from the city? Good primary schools and Mountbatten is well thought of as the main secondary. It depends where in Southampton he is working as Tutu said .

Southampton schools are improving, but that is not saying much.
Central Southampton has no secondary school so is well worth avoiding until it does.
Southampton has a very high Polish population (around 10%) which can be a shock but as they and their kids work hard, it seems to have a positive impact on schools.

On the other hand
Romsey : easy bus and train to Southampton, nice houses, good schools, lovely place
Chandlers Ford : ditto
Botley : ditto

We are thinking about relocating also. Currently live in South East London and would need to move in order to afford a house rather than a small flat. I'm really wondering what the cultural mix is like in Southampton. It is very important to us that we live somewhere with a good mix of races including a good range of role models eg where we live people could be any race in any occupation eg doctors, teachers, librarians etc could be black, white or Asian. I'm encouraged hearing about the Polish population but are there a mix of other populations too and how about in nearby areas I've read here are nice, eg Chandler's Ford? Thanks for any advice.

Chandlers ford is much whiter than Southampton.
For ethnic mix you probably want Portswood or Upper Shirley
we have decent sized and dynamic Sikh and Hindu populations
Chinese new year (its a merchant port after all)
the West Indian club
and the big mosque in town

When they filmed in Derby road for Channel 4 they tried to manfacture conflic
St Marks primary has 57 languages