Moving to Brighton- best areas to live/best schools?

[lolavitagain]

Hello, I will be moving to the Brighton area in the future and as I don't know the area well I wondered which areas were more 'desirable' (bearing in mind I am a single mum with a 4 year old daughter.) My biggest priority is finding somewhere in the catchment of a good primary and secondary school. (My daughter's current school is excellent.... sad to leave!) Any thoughts, suggestions would be very welcome.... Thank you.x

p.s I have looked at a flat on Ditchling Rise in Brighton - but don't know the area at all.... Anyone?!!

Hi! Nice to 'meet' you. I have lived here for the last seven years and love it. We have two children, our daughter is 4 in a couple of weeks and our son has just turned 2.
You have loads of choices with regards to areas in Brighton. Where are you moving from?
You will probably notice the ridiculous catchment areas of schools here. They are really small, and you aren't guaranteed to get a place at your nearest school. I have a friend who lives on ditchling rise (the bottom end near the viaduct) she's very happy there, and her daughter will be starting school (Stanford infants) in sept. What sort of property are you looking for? I live in Hanover, which is lovely, there's a good community feeling here, although the houses are quite small, and there are very few with gardens bigger than a postage stamp! There are some good schools nearby (Elm Grove, St. Luke's, Queens Park and Carlton Hill) and nice parks too. Fiveways is a popular area for people with kids, again good schools (Downs infants and Balfour) and nice parks, the houses there are bigger but come with a bigger price tag too unfortunately. Westdene is nice, much greener part of town. Westdene primary has a good reputation. You need to be able to drive if you live here though.

I would recommend getting in touch with school admissions. You're best bet may be to decide on a school and then move as close as possible so you have a chance of getting a place there. There are very, very few schools with places. I think all but two were oversubscribed this year or something ridiculous like that. With catchments only being about 600 metres for lots of them.

Hope I've helped, didn't mean to write an essay!!

Fiveways is great cause you have access to Stanford, Downs and Balfour. We're in central Hove with kids at Davigdor which is fantastic but a notoriously small and inflexible catchment. (you'll get Hove Park or Blatchington Mill for secondary) Property does come up there though, so worth looking.

Also, Poets Corner (west hove)is a great family area with good schools. Def worth checking with admissions though because if you're in a dead zone, you get given schools on the other side of the city. They'll let you know the school, catchments and you can take it from there. Good luck! Hope it goes well for you.

Ditcling Rise very nice. Easy walk to town, Preston Park lovely, choice of schools. Fiveways also lovely, though if you live in Ditchling Rise you can pretend you're in Fiveways because it's so close!

We looked seriously a while back. Speak to schools direct. I know there were thinking/or may have already started flexing catchment areas to have 50% done geographically/sibling etc and 50% non-geographic to avoid some schools getting oversubscribed and all the middle classes moving to certain catchment areas. Would really recommend you sort schools b4 house.

We moved a while back in London and really cocked up so know from bitter experience!)