Hello! My hudband and I currently live in Surrey and each work at pretty prestigious independent schools. We have a one year old and a second child on the way. At some point after child 2 is born, we want to move away from Surrey (despite good salariea we live in a small end of terrace house and can get more for our money elsewhere, plus we would love to live by the sea).
We want to live near Exeter, preferanly in a large village or small town near the sea. I was lookimg at Sidmouth or Teignmouth.
However, we also need to find places that have schools for us to work in - ideally independent schools as one perk of these schools is that some offer a whopping teacher discount for a teacher's child to attend. Around here it ranges from 50%-75% discount in our schools. We would love to be able to afford to put our kids through private school and give them advantages we never had, and working in independent schools is the only way we could ever even dream of affording this.
However, while I'm pretty up on independent schools in Surrey, I do realise Exeter might be completely different. So if anyone can help me with the following, I'd be very grateful:
- Does anyone know if any of the senior independent schools offer a teacher discount for their child's fees - if so, which schools and how much?
- Does anyone know which schools routinely offer accommodation for teachers and their families (not a deal breaker but a perk; at my husband's boarding and day school, 70% of staff live in school accommodation)
- Does anyone know much about the smaller independent schools? St John's for instance looks lovely... but I've always been wary of smaller schools round here being risky and would be worried about redundancy or potential closure?
- Does anyone know remotely what independent school salaries are like in that neck of the woods? I'm not expecting as high as Surrey but schools rarely advertise salaries until you're offered the job!
- Does anyone know how competitive independent school jobs are down there? In Surrey we can pretty much have our pick of schools to work in but there are SO many independent schools around here!
- can anyone comment on Sidmouth or Teignmouth, or suggest anywhere else we might like the sound of?
Sorry about all the questions. Thanks in advance for anyone who can help! I feel a bit clueless at the moment and overwhelmed by the prospect of moving!