pre school places in a new area before a move

[Andcake]

Ok- just in need of a bit of advice or views. DS is 2 (summer born) and we will need to move before he hits primary school age as the schools around us are dreadful and we are in a flat and need more space as he grows - at the moment we love where we are and don't want to move before we have to.

So when is the best time to move - we need to be in place I guess before the school admissions deadline the feb before he's due to start so this would mean finding a new preschool/nursery?

Getting pre-school places in somewhere new is worrying me - DS loves his nursery - it has an outstanding and he has many friends and I dread not knowing where he's going to be and as it will be greater London waiting lists for good nurserys are usually a year long :-(
Can I put him on waiting lists before we move to an area if we think we know where we will be?
what would you do? am I stressing over to much - we would probably need to move in a year or so's time?

At our setting children moving into the area are usually 'bumped' up the list.
If you know where you are moving to, you could ring a few and ask what their policy is.

I'm also assuming it's better to move at pre school age rather than in reception due to primary place shortages- is that others experiences?

We have recently been through a similar situation. DD was really happy in her nursery (private) but the school catchment area sucked. We were also renting and she was approaching three (also summer born)
Luckily we found a fantastic state nursery/preschool attached to a fab primary a couple of miles away. We also fell in love with the area. State nursery applications I believe need to be completed by end of January (I may be wrong on this so worth checking..) you can apply from out of area. This is what we did and we received an offer letter in the Easter. (although obv it depends on demand for places)
We moved to the new area in August and DD started state nursery this September. We will be applying for her reception place in the next few months and will apply for the same primary school her nursery is part of. This way she has a year to get to know her school peer group. We now live up the road so stand a very good chance of a place.
This was our experience and luckily it seems to have worked out so far. Good luck! I was also unbelievably stressed/overwhelmed by the whole school catchment/application process. It seemed madness to be thinking of primary schools when she was just two!! However, once I had done the research on area and schools I was confident we could make it work. Have faith! Bear in mind that private nurseries usually require a non refundable deposit for their waiting lists. xx

Yes, try and move in his pre-school year rather than any later.

The deadline for application has been mid January for the last few years so you will need to be in your new house by the January before he starts school.

Whether you can apply for pre-school places before you live in the area will depend on the admission arrangements for that pre-school.