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Original poster

St Albans - a nice place to live?

95 replies

roseylea · 03/02/2007 08:57

Yippeeeeee we are moving house!

I'm v. excited (some may say obsessed - i.e. my dh) and starting to look at areas to move to, all in Herts or Bucks as that's where our familes are.

So does anyone know much about St Albans? We are looking to stay wherever we move to for the whole of our dcs' schooling so we are looking for primaries and secondaries. We are CofE christians and I would particularly like the dcs to go to church schools if poss - I had a look at the Townsend school website and really liked the look of its ethos. We haven't got a huge budget for the area (£250K) but there are houses on rightmove that fit into that price range (not many, admittedly).

So does anyone live in St Albans and vouch for it (or not?) What I'd really love is to give someone the names of streets with houses in our budget and for someone to tell me if they're reasonably nice areas or not. We don't live that far away so I'm planning on doing a drive around. We are also looking at other areas like Tring, Chesham, Berko, villages in between those places, Hemel (possibly but not convinced), and Rickmansworth (we used to live near there so still got friends and know the area).

TIA!

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Original poster
roseylea · 03/02/2007 11:02

Thanks for that, 40+ and MerryMarigold. I have got, as my internet favourites, Google maps, rightmove, links to schools...so each house that looks good, I'm trying to get an idea of the area it's in.

Hemel Old Town is nice, isn't it? But where would the local secondaries be for there?

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Original poster
roseylea · 03/02/2007 11:08

Alibubbles when are you free? And can you CAT? Or give me your e-mail?

I'm dh-less this weekend (he's in Prague on a stag do ) and today is pretty free - is today what you meant? Otherwise we could set up another day, no problemo.

I've got my 2 dcs (aged nearly 3 and 4.5) in tow today, if that's okay.

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alibubbles · 03/02/2007 11:13

I went into London on the train yesterday, less thasn an hour door to door to South Kensington, the train only takes 20 ins to Kings Cross. I commuted to Knightsbridge until 4 weeks before DD was born.

Rosylea All the primary schools are oversubscribed, and three school have been asked to take an extra 30 pupils each this coming Sept, so Portakabins are being put in place. The ouncil say it is because of an unexpected bulge, but when I was a governor the council knew about it 10 years ago, from the projections they had at the time. We discussed it at length!

St Peters, Maple and Aboyne Lodge are havuing to take more. garden Fields is not far from Canberra, they have a 2 form entry, but I think you would be likely to get Margaret Wix, or apply to thechurch schools

alibubbles · 03/02/2007 11:15

DH is working with the estate agents today, I am on my own.

Where do you live at present?

[email protected]

KTeePee · 03/02/2007 11:15

Might get into Bernards Heath too from Canberra Close....

Original poster
roseylea · 03/02/2007 11:20

Have just e-mailed you Alibubbles!

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edam · 03/02/2007 11:23

Rosylea, try Upmystreet.com - if you can get the postcode (Royal Mail postcode finder) of any street you are interested in, it will show you what the nearest schools are.

Herts. LEA is crap at realising how many children they have to cater for. Hence all the problems with secondary transfer for Wheathampstead children last year.

They keep saying there are spare primary places in Harpenden but only at two schools on the edges that no-one wants. All the other schools are over-subscribed. So they end up trying to send children from West Common (southern edges) to the other side of town to school. Ludicrous. Although hard to be too sympathetic as houses in West Common start at £1m+ so they can afford to go private!

There's also an issue with siblings getting first pick - if it's a high sibling year, people from the villages don't get into Harpenden schools. There were only 13 non-sibling places this year at the primary we've got for ds. And I know lots of church-going Catholic families who didn't get into St Dominics.

Buy in St Albans or Harpenden rather than one of the villages.

alibubbles · 03/02/2007 11:34

I have just read the profile for my postcode on Upmystreet, it is scarily accurate, apart from bird watching!

edam · 03/02/2007 11:36

Mine was very accurate except for house prices - because we live in a small street of normal houses in the middle of bigger streets of very expensive houses. It only goes on post-code sectors which cover about 300 houses (first four letters and numbers).

Original poster
roseylea · 03/02/2007 11:44

Yes, I've been having a look on Upmystreet.

I'm assuming that Harpenden is out of our price range - having said that I haven't actally looked. My sister works at a pre-school in Harpenden which is lovely.

I'm still working out whether it'd be better for the dcs to live in a smaller place (eg Tring) or a bigger place (eg St Albans). I know it's horses for courses really...my dh's ideal would be to live in the middle of a forest but in reality that'd be desperately desperately dull for dcs, esp. when they hit their teens...

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edam · 03/02/2007 11:47

I think Harpenden and St Albans are similar in prices, tbh, Harpenden might even be marginally cheaper. But there's not much available right now - I know people who have looked in the last six months and there's a real shortage of property.

Are your children primary or secondary age?

MerryMarigold · 03/02/2007 11:49

If you live in Hemel Old Town, nothing is really, really local except the Old Bell Pub! Cavendish School would be about 15 mins walk (where I went, it was fab in my day, but not so good anymore I believe). But there ARE loads of buses. I used to bus from Woodhall Farm (big estate, quite nice really) to Cavendish, and JFK had a school bus from there too. Not sure about primaries in that area - it's been a long time. But the advantage of Hemel is that it's cheaper, so you get more choice (to pick the better areas).

Original poster
roseylea · 03/02/2007 11:52

My dcs are still v.young - 4.5 (started full time school in January) and nearly 3. So it might sound a bit OTT to be thinking about secondary schools but the thing is we want to find somewhere we feel we are likely to be able to settle down for years to come, and we are looking for somewhre that ofers a good 'package' ifswim.

Our families spread between Kings Langley and Cholesbury, so we don't want to go too far. Anyother suggestions?

Thanks for all the advice; this is really helpful to be able to do a bit of intel-gathering!

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alibubbles · 03/02/2007 11:53

It doesn't give house prices for my lane, there are only 29 houses on it, and none have been sold for a few years, there is one for sale here, but no garage, it is a few doors away

fortyplus · 03/02/2007 12:25

You can check the actual selling price of any house on the land registry website: www.houseprices.co.uk

Original poster
roseylea · 03/02/2007 12:43

Thanks for that 40+, that's worth knowing about.

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Original poster
roseylea · 03/02/2007 12:46

In fact that is brilliant info to have - you are a genius!

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edam · 03/02/2007 14:56

Ok, in Harpenden good primaries are Wood End, Crabtree, Roundwood, St Dominics (RC), St Nicholas's (CofE). High Beeches also good, so I'm told. And The Grove is good but under-rated (oversubscribed this year though). You need to live in the catchment area for one of these, but areas vary year to year depending on applications, helpfully. Roundwood, St Nicholas's, St Dominics and The Grove all apply something called 'class size prejudice' which I guess is just a way of saying if there aren't enough places you don't get in.

Tbh all the Harpenden schools are good although The Lea is less sought-after (the only one with spare places) and Sauncey Wood is the one everyone wants to avoid (so don't move to the Batford end of town). But even SW scores better than average on all the government measurements.

Ds has got into Roundwood - we are very pleased as we know it's a lovely school, he's already at the nursery, all his friends go there and it just got outstanding in every area in the Ofsted report. But there were only 13 non-sibling places this year so we feel very lucky!

Judy1234 · 03/02/2007 15:29

If I was not paying it woudl be Watford Grammar probably or one of the grammar schools in Bucks if you can travel that far. If I was paying it would be Habs boys or Girls in Herts for schools and they have daily school coaches from St A, loads of children from there go there.

St Albans is very easy to get into London from.

Original poster
roseylea · 03/02/2007 16:08

I see where you're coming from Xenia but personally I'm just not convinced that these very high-achieving schools are necessarily best for all students - I'm looking for one that hopefully will give good pastoral care, a good moral and spiritual ethos and community involvement...(as well as good exam results). I'm a teacher so I guess I'm much more critical of schools than most.

Some of my family went to Berko Collegiate and the kids there had the morals of hyenas.
(With apologies to anyone whose children are there! Maybe my lot fell in with a bad lot...)

I don't think there's such thing as the perfect school; you just have to find one that you are most comfortable with (hopefully). I'm aware how privileged I am even to be having this conversation - so many people have little or no choice in where their children go to school.

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edam · 03/02/2007 16:08

Xenia, dh went to a very, very sought-after grammar school in Bucks. And hated it. Most of his friends went to Oxford and Cambridge but it turned dh right off and he didn't go to university. Still, he had a better time than the poor boys who it turns out were sexually abused by a teacher who was protected by the headmaster...

edam · 03/02/2007 16:17

People move here to get their kids into the schools I've mentioned, Xenia. Clearly not good enough for you, though. I went to a very selective girls' school and thoroughly enjoyed it but I'm more than happy with my local schools without sending ds all the way to Watford every day.

fortyplus · 03/02/2007 17:27

roseylea - from Hemel Old Town you wouldn't get into Hemel School - I think it would be Cavendish, which used to have a good reputation but has had a lot of problems in recent years. (eg 3 Heads!)
The Primary School is George Street, which I believe has a good reputation.
Parts of Boxmoor are pretty. There's a lot of common land owned by the Boxmoor Trust. Blackbirds Moor runs alongside the canal and is the setting for lots of pleasant activities - an annual conker festival, cricket matches and an annual visit from Carter's Steam Fair.
If money was no object I'd prefer Harpenden or St Albans, but here's the comparison...
I live in a pleasant 4 bed Edwardian house on the outskirts of Hemel worth about £400K. My brother owns similar (tho with a garden twice the size of mine) just off Harpenden High St and reckons it's worth £1million.
You pays yer money and yer takes yer choice...

fortyplus · 03/02/2007 17:33

Xenia - you wouldn't get in to Watford Grammar or Aylesbury Grammar from Harpenden or St Albans. All the selective schools will only allow applicants from certain postcodes.
I think it would be Verulam School for boys - not sure about the girls.
My brother's step daughter went to STAGS and absolutely hated it - she's a reasonably intelligent girl but left with only 3 GCSEs - after hundreds of £s worth of private tuition.
She now works for a Solicitor and is learning conveyancing, but it's a bit of a waste. She wasn't an Einstein but should have achieved far better academic results than she did.

mrsmalumbas · 03/02/2007 17:33

We used to live in St.Albans and loved it - we had a little house within walking distance of the town centre and it was great. Very pretty, good shopping, accessible to London, nice things to do on a weekend e.g walk around the big paark by the Cathedral, explore the pubs in the old town etc. Only downside I would say is the traffic, and also it is quite expensive so it does depend on your budget. We lived there pre-kids so I have no experience of schools or anything, sorry. Harpenden also lovely but again expensive. But isn't everywhere in the SE?

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