Don't know where to start - please help!

[onthemoveyetagain]

Hi there,

I am pulling my hair out right now. Far too long a story, but it looks like we need to move back to the UK very quickly. Problem is we have no idea of where to start, we just know we need to move things along very quickly.

The biggest problem is we don't know where to go. We don't really have any friends in the UK as we have been away for a long time. My husband needs to travel to London so we are thinking either Hampshire or Surrey. Have lived in both before and were fairly happy.

So why am I posting in the education forum? Finding a lovely happy and bright primary school is a very very important priority for me. My son left a lovely lovely school to come here and always talks about it there. But the location wouldn't be right for us now.

So my question is: does anyone have children at a wonderful, happy, Ofsted high-rated (hides from all the missiles that Ofsted doesn't necessarily mean much : )) school in either Hampshire or Surrey or possibly Wiltshire (commutable to London). I want to find a happy, bright school where the children are happy and the atmosphere is nurturing, no cliches and cold ethos. Just happiness being at the core of the school. Anyone got a great school to tell me about before I just put a pin on the map. I know it is a little like asking "how long is a piece of string" but I really do believe some schools do have a tangible happiness factor.

My head is spinning and I really need some help here. Primary would be best as I have three school age children aged 4, 5, 6.

Many thanks to anyone who might have a golden nugget of a school to tell me about : ))

By the way, I know it is very likely that the school we find and like is going to have a waiting list. I am prepared for that. Many thanks.

It might be a very long wait to get 3 children into a school that is that good.

Maybe the focus should be on areas /towns that have good schools. You also want to think about the structure of schooling within that area- you could be faced with 1 of the following
1 - Primary -> Secondary
2 - Infants-> Junior-> Secondary
3 - Primary ->Grammar / Secondary
4 - Infants -> Junior -> Grammar/ Secondary

Are you likely to stay in the UK for a while? Do you want to be in a Grammar school area? Would you consider Private?

Sorry not to have a specific school for you as I live in London. It just struck me that there are other considerations beyond it being a happy school.

Just into Surrey, we looked at and loved Woodmansterne, but decided it was just a bit too far away for us to travel to every day. Very impressed with it though, and friends have kids there and seem to really rate it.

You are going to find it quite difficult to find a school that has places for children aged 4,5 and 6, which is then Ofsted rated. Most of them are going to be full and with the infant class size regulations to contend with in many schools, you are going to find it very difficult to get places at appeal.

As such i suspect that your best bet is to go for as rural a location as possible because they are more likely to have places available and / or squeeze another child in. If you go to an urban location the probability is that any school that has places in reception, year 1 and year 2 is going to be not the kind of school that you are looking for.

Sorry that this sounds negative but it unfortunately is the reality of your situation.

Can I suggest (if you are staying in state system) looking at the secondary schools in catchment as priority over primary. As the time literally flies by and having them in a good catchment from the off allows them to develop friendships etc to take them through.

Are you looking only at state schools or would you consider private as well? If the latter, you may have more options but three lots of school fees is a lot of money of course!
You might like to take a look at the Good Schools Guide - not everybody agrees with it but I think that it is a starting point at least.
BTW, Hampshire and Wiltshire sound like very long (and expensive!) commutes into London to me. I know that there are people who do this but you might want to look at Bucks and Herts and possibly Kent as well.

I have one experience of primary school in Surrey. This is it . I had a wonderful time there - location and size were just lovely.

Oh, and it is outstanding too.

Hello

I can help sort of re Hampshire as I recently transferred DD in year due to move. The first step for me was to call the local education authority. The guy I spoke to was unbelievably efficient. He called me back within mere hours of my query with a list of all the schools which had places for my DD's year. I then did my research and shortlisted a few, checked the OFSTED and went to visit them to get a feel for them.

At the time (end of November) there were still quite a few places in some decent school for instance in Andover, Basingstoke etc...

My first step would therefore be to call them and check. I would assume Surrey has a similar service?

Good luck for your relocation

I live in Hampshire and London is commutable and it isn't too long a journey from dh and bil POV. Easy motorway access and train service. We live new forest and some lovely schools as well as the national park, beaches etc. Come live here (my neighbours house is for sale too!)

at Mama - I live in North London and was probably writing with the typical North Londoner's attitude to anywhere outside the M25 . Hell, anywhere "south of the river".....

summersoon. Well I be 'ampshire born en 'ampshire bred.

How wonderful are you all? Such helpful comments and not a hint of sarcasm which I totally expected on asking such a ridiculously generalised question.

ChazsBrilliantAttitude and Mamamaiasaura - you are quite right. We will also look at the secondary schools - I think we have ruled out grammar school areas as I think putting through 4 children would give me too many grey hairs. And we initially went private but had a wake up call in the end. So state it is!! And fine with that - the lovely school my son loved was state and he hated his prep school.

RueDeWakening - thank you! Just the kind of post I was hoping for - will look at the school you mentioned.

Admission - you are quite right. We will wait patiently for a place and try to move close by to increase our chances.

Summersoon (I wish) we considered Herts and Kent and Bucks a few years ago and ended up preferring Hampshire and Surrey. Didn't want the Grammar school system and liked the other areas better.

CrispLeCrisp - thank you - really excited about looking at your link after thanking everyone : )

Lifeistooshort - great tip - thank you : ))

So, in summary - thanks so much.....really appreciate all these lovely posts : ))

CrispLeCrisp - oh, how funny - just looked at your link. It was the school just up our road. We lived in Great Bookham! Lovely school but only an infant school. Wasn't so impressed with the look of Dawnay or Eastwick.. Howard of Effingham looked fab though!!

How bizarre OnTheMove! I loved that school and I think it shaped my l

How bizarre OnTheMove! I loved that school and I think it shaped my whole outlook on school. I went to Eastwick and then Howard. I loved Eastwick too - the pool was fab in the summer and the teaching was excellent (although many years ago now!).

Howard was ok, just felt very big after 2 relatively small schools. Came out with 9 A's and a B at gcse (pre A* ) and 3 good A levels so a good learning environment.

Hope you find somewhere you and your DC love too

Sorry about 1st post - phone posted too soon!

Great results CrispLeCrisp!! Interesting that you weren't bowled over by the school though.

Anyone else with any other great primary schools around you - would so appreciate hearing about them!

Interested to see you have considered Surrey, Hampshire and Kent but not East or West Sussex. Any particular reason for that? I just can't help noticing they border those counties, have beautiful countryside, are commuting distance from London and have some good schools...

Hi. I know the area near Polesden and this is a very good school. I would also try any of the Bookham schools (they are all good), St Matthews at Downside (infants), Clandon infants and Ripley primary school. You would have better luck getting places for all 3 at one of the infant schools, and then you could apply for your eldest for a September Y3 place as well as a late applicant (normal application date for Surrey would be 15 Jan). Take a look at SCC website but I think you get at least an extra month if you are moving. There is a school finder app on SCC website that works by putting in a postcode and it gives you all local primary etc schools to that postcode, which would help you to see where the schools are. Also talk to SCC as someone else suggested re Hampshire. They are very helpful.

Rabbitstew - we did consider Sussex before - we looked on the east side. The countryside was beautiful but it felt a bit too remote for us and the train service was slow. I do remember how lovely and friendly the people were though (after Surrey - oops, massive generalisation - goes and hides from missiles).

Silverstreet - I looked around Polesden and was really impressed - but we will be needing a primary or junior school - can't believe how quickly my babies are growing : (( Will look at the others you have mentioned. I am surprised that you think it would be easier to get the children into an infant school as the cap at 30 is always a real nightmare. They don't have that in juniors so I kind of thought we would have more chance of getting the children in somewhere.

Thanks for your thoughts - it is great to be able to brainstorm with someone other than my cynical, opinionated, but lovely of course, hubby : ))

Sorry I didn't express that very clearly. I was assuming you have current Y2 and below children. In my area you would have a better chance getting all 3 into the same school straight away when you move at a very good infant school rather than a very good all through primary. Reason being the good infant schools are less oversubscribed as the reapplication at Y3 to another school can put off some parents. What I think you need to look for is a school that has less than 30 in the years your children are in, because of the infant size restriction of 30. You have virtually no hope of getting them into a school where they do not have spaces if they are year 2 and below because of the infant class size restriction. If is worth looking at the all through primaries as well, but the ones I know well here would not be able to accommodate more than 1 or 2 of your children as those year groups are already nearly all full, or even over full as a result of exceptional circumstances. So you would be looking at having 1 or 2 of your children there and 1 or 2 at a different school which might not be that near.

With an infant school the downside would be that they would be moving school again for Y3, but they would be moving with a fair no of children that they know already and they would also no longer be the ?new child? quite quickly, as in a sense they are all new when they move to junior school. Somewhere like Polesden is also good as the schools children transfer to from there are pretty near and lots of parents do this transition so the 2 school run scenario is not that difficult. Plus the children do very well at these junior schools/other primaries some of them go onto, none of them are weak schools.

This is just my area, you may find an all through primary elsewhere that does have spaces for all 3 children. Good luck.

Look at Hertfordshire ... some brilliant semi-selective secondaries. You only need the first one to be clever then the others get in free.

You could try East Grinstead in West Sussex? Just under an hour on the train to London Victoria or London Bridge (and end of the line, so guaranteed seat in the morning!); close to Surrey (can even get in to some Surrey primary schools from there), East Sussex and Kent (close enough for Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells super selective grammar schools to be an option?); two good comprehensive secondary schools (one Good, one Outstanding); beautiful countryside around it; close to Gatwick airport for travel (and work opportunities); a selection of good primary schools, including one which starts at 8.30 in the morning, making having children temporarily in different schools until spaces become available more of a possibility (particularly since the town is not that big, so distances between schools are not huge); very good private schools nearby; nice community in which to live. Although, admittedly, that is then stretching your search area a little bit beyond Surrey and Hampshire.

Thanks everyone - some lovely helpful advice with no-one being critical! Thank you for taking the time to write to me - I really appreciate this! Some great food for thought!

Don't forget that OFSTED can rapidly become outdated, particularly if the school in question has a relatively new, effective head (for rapid improvements and a huge boost to the morale of the whole school community), or has an old, tired head, new and ineffective head, or temporarily no head at all (if you want to watch it nosedive). It would also, therefore, be worth looking at the schools' websites, to see what they say about themselves, and not to focus on only "outstanding" schools, since there may well be more "good" schools that fulfil your actual criteria. Ideally, you would see the schools in question and talk to parents, of course, but if you aren't in the country...

My dss go to a school that was solidly "good" in its last OFSTED (up from satisfactory prior to that, when there was a gap between headteachers). It is now considered good with outstanding features, but is clearly on its way to being considered "outstanding" if the headteacher has anything to do with it. I would recommend it, but it wouldn't be convenient for you!