Advice on where to live in Edinburgh

[FlyMeToDunoon]

Hi I am hoping to move from the deepest south east England to Edinburgh soon.
Despite my name I am not from Dunoon. I am from Edinburgh but I don't have much experience of trying to find primary and secondary schools for children there.
We would be renting at first but to save disrupting the children I would prefer to rent in the same area as we would eventually buy in so as to keep them in the same schools. So If we were looking to buy in the future a 3 bed place for around £200,00 what areas could you recommend?
I have been looking at the espc site for a while and have seen flats available in Saunders St, Stockbridge for example to rent or buy and would imagine that to be a great place but what other possibilities are there?

marchmont is lovely but i have 2 words for you, rats and students.

BariatricObama. I know Marchmont quite well and it is lovely. I went to Gillespies High School myself.
ATM we will need to rent first. I reckon the Sciennes, Newington, Marchmont areas are ideal. We could rent initially in Marchmont maybe as near to schools etc and then eventually buy further down and cheaper in the Newington area as linked to earlier.

Ooh, FMtD, so did I. When did you leave? Wonder if we know each other...

Well I am 45 so you can get a vague idea.....It's so long ago that I can't even work out the exact year.

Ah, I am 34 so prob didn't overlap.

No. Just a slight age gap.

Sounds like you are set but what about Corstorphine? Good transport links, great community feel and cheaper housing. Excellent school e.g. primary school at Corstorphine and high school at Craigmount.

I think when the time comes to actually look at properties ie after we exchange then I will consider other places and go in with an open mind. If a lovely flat came up in a different area and the schools were good then yes. It's nice to have some idea generally.

corstorphine is were dreams go to die

Oh dear don't you get good vibes from the animals in the zoo then?

Judeboo - "honestly stockbridge is full of oldies. Also stockbridge just feels quite dark and low and such a trek into town. Families choose stockbridge for the private schools and so the state schools suffer."

Yes, there are quite a few 'oldies' and that is nice. There's an old man who I remember seeing when I was at school 30 odd years ago and he had white hair then, he's still around.
There are also tonnes of families, you can't move for prams and DD2 mad little tykes on scooters.

I have never thought of it as 'dark and low'. It feels the right scale for humans and cosy. It isn't a trek into town, it takes me 20 minutes to walk from the bridge in Stockbridge to Tollcross. And anyway why would I want to go into town when we have everything we need here?

What private schools? {naive}

I think we all believe the place we like living is the best!

HMI reports are the Scottish schools official inspections - all reports he
www.hmie.gov.uk/re

Shitemum I know Stockbridge quite well
Thank you Annie

Shitemum - sorry - I think you're right I just love where I live and feel really lucky.

It's great so many people here are happy where they are. When I lived in london everyone seemed to hate where they lived.

Did anyone know about Clermiston?

LOVE where I live!!! Have kids in both Sciennes Primary and Gillespies high school..
Honestly only 5 min walk from the Meadows playground and lots and lots of little shops. So thankfull that we found a house here!! Both schools are excellent and NO rats or studenst here well at least not in my house (except my dc hahaha)

SGM can you tell me about schools there. I don't know much about them. Drummond would suit best secondary in terms of vicinity to my mum and therefore childcare. Not so much for DD1 who is 10 but DD2 will be at primary and DD3 at a nursery.
Feeder schools for Drummond are Abbeyhill, Broughton na Leith Walk. Any info on them?

Thats really useful thanks.
Hopefully I will get up at some point. Our plans are uncertain again as DP is up for a really good job down here. I am still researching because I need to be able to move quickly when we decide what is happening.

I live near clermiston, afaik it's nice (the Park grove bit) think Clermiston school good and it feeds to Royal High which has excellent reputation. East Craigs Primary very good (got fantastic HMIE Inspection) and feeds to Craigmount which is also supposed to be good school. Fox covert area also nice with small school. hope this helps.

hello flymetodunoon.. don't know if you will still be looking at this thread but I have just noticed it as I have just discovered the edinburgh local bit (not sure why i didn't realize it was there before!)..anyway just wanted to say that we are moving to Edinburgh from down south (well the midlands) in the summer as my dh ahs a new job there. Some of the posters on this thread have been ably advising me on another thread i set up in chat..
anyway was just being nosey wanting to know whether you have decided to move up and where to if you you have..
you have a big advantage on us being from Edinburgh yourself, I have been there for a total of 3 days in my life so far so it feels like we are doing a lot of guessing in the dark in terms of finding somewhere to live. Although honestly the fine MNetters that have offered wisdom so far have really really helped us (thanks ladies )
All the best with the house hunting if you are still on course for the move..
and maybe see you one day if they do edinburgh meet ups (do you, ladies?! )

Those of you with DC's at Gillespies do you know what the situation is with the secondary school closing for repairs? Is it correct that it's going to move to a temporary location next door to Tynecastle school?

Dunoon Agree with most of what has been said on this thread already. I also know someone who lives in Saunders Street and while they aren't as pretty as the other buildings in Stockbridge they're great inside. My personal favourite is the Marchmont/Bruntsfield area although my DH describes it as a "bit up itself" but he's from Aberdeen so what does he know Is your 5 yo going into P1 or P2? If P1 Gillespies, Sciennes and Bruntsfield are already full with waiting lists so good idea to phone around, for P2 places also actually as last year was a big intake too.

Oh and on the subject of rats I watched one run across my mum's perfect lawn in deepest darkest Barnton on Sunday evening - they're in the best neighbourhoods these days (said with a morningside accent)

Oh and Blackford is really nice too - good duck pond.

and if anyone sees this..
have noticed buckstone primary has brilliant stats results and buckstone is near morningside - but is it really?? like, would i feel near morningside and nice places or just stuck in a 1970s estate (the like of which i grew up on )?
thanks!
also slightly swayed by beautiful and affordable steading conversion near Gullane - yes totally totally different but looks gorgeous. does anyone have an opinion on gullane?! ta.