NEED help with moving to Cambridge...lots of questions

[silverkitty]

Hello all,

I am currently in the states and my family and I will be moving to Cambridge this fall. My husband will be pursuing a doctorate at St. Johns. I have 3 kids, one rising 4th grader, 1st grade, and a 4 year old. I have been homeschooling up to this point but I am considering british schools. Also, I am not looking for any church/state schools.

1. Where is the best family area to live that is convenient to the university and for easy shopping?

1. I am looking at good primary schools....what are your recommendations? I heard St. Matthews is pretty good but which area is that? Do they teach religion? Can all my children attend this school?

1. Anything else I need to know about life in Cambridge.

Thanks!

Fluffy - might be a good idea except it may fall foul of the residency rules for Cambridge students (3 miles from great St Mary's etc).

Let the college look after you. They will have dealt with all these issues many times before, will have a dedicated office for organising things, and will without provide you with better and more suitable accommodation than you will otherwise be able to find or afford.

They have extensive family accommodation for postgrads, often with shared gardens, hugely multi cultural, centrally located. This is how you will build your community, find friends and colleagues, and give your kids the best chance of integrating and having a wonderful experience of living in a new place.

I can't imagine a better way of ending up isolated and alienated than moving out beyond all that support and comradeship; you may well have to alter your expectations a bit, but it will undoubtedly be worth it.

You need to think about your husband's needs too; to make thd most if this opportunity he will need to be taking part in the life of the college and his department, working late, staying for seminars; if you set life up do that he has to keep travelling back out of town because his family is depending on him for their interactions and support system, you'll severely limit his ability to engage with everything that Cambridge has to offer.

Please, please go for the College accommodation!

I think it's 10 miles for graduate students, and having a car if you're over 24 isn't a problem.

OBAA has put it better than I possibly could have done...

Do not think 'how can I get my American lifestle in the UK' - you can't, and it will make you unhappy to try, as you will get a poor copy in which many things are less good than you might have at home.

Think 'how can I really embrace the life of a postgrad in the UK and get the most out of this amazing experience' and you will have a much better time. An extra bathroom vs living near the centre of one of the loveliest and most walkable cities in the world - no contest. Learning to ride a bike vs spending hours each day in traffic queues - no contest. Large private garden vs lovely public parks and areas for free and where you can meet lots of friends - again, no contest.

Contact the college. St John's is big, rich and will help you. They may also be able to put you in touch with similar families currently in residence who can answer all the questions you have and will understand the culture shock better than we can.

When we relocated to the US, I had the same in reverse - emotionally, what I wanted was the rural life I had in Britain with neighbours I knew. Practically, what I got was the life of a suburban mom in Maryland, joining MOMS, riding the subway into the city etc etc. Couldn't quite bring myself to drive a 'proper' American car though! I still drove a Focus over there and was hugely amused to see that it only came with 2 doors because it was too small to be a family car....

These links (& keep browsing from there) might be useful:

www.gradunion.cam.ac.uk/wp/

www.admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/childcare/student/

www.admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/childcare/student/accomm.html

And another point re college accommodation - you are likely to save hundreds of pounds a month compared to renting on the open market. You will no doubt have to adjust your expectations comfort-wise, unless college accommodation has come on further than I imagine in the last 10 years, but the benefits both financially and, as people have said, in terms of a ready made community are incalculable.

Forum here, including a board for accommodation ads and requests:

www.gradunion.cam.ac.uk/wp/forum/

Lots of mums here cycle with 3 kids, it's very normal. There are lots of cycle paths And routes through parks that don't involve using the roads. You will be shocked by how much cars and petrol cost, by the narrow size of streets and tiny cars and tiny and rare and expensive parking spaces. You will be unable to park anywhere near most shops or schools in town and traffic jams are worse in Cambridge than almost anywhere. It is nevertheless a lovely lovely place to live.

What is your budget for renting a house? Have you looked at rightmove. Co.uk for rental prices?

Your youngest will start primary school thus september if he will turn 5 years old before 31 aug 2013. If you tell us the month and year of birth for each of your kids we can tell you which year they will be in.

I have to say I agree with OBAA and teacherwith2kids: you will get much more out of your three years or so in Cambridge if you live somewhere central (even if the accommodation is a little cramped) than if you choose to live somewhere far out purely for the sake of a bigger house.

If you are in Cambridge itself, you will be within reach of a wider choice of schools, and if you end up homeschooling, you will have easy access to all the museums, libraries, botanical gardens, music and art events, and I would guess networks of other homeschoolers to give your children a chance to make local friends. Homeschooling based in a village way outside Cambridge would probably be a very isolating experience.

Hi OP. Not sure if you have discounted continuing with Homeschooling, but Cambridge and surrounding areas has a large and thriving home-ed community. We arrived from Cyprus a year ago and have been pleasantly surprised at the amount of support and organised activities available in Cambs.
We live around 10 miles from the city in a lovely village and we are spoiled for choice with HE activities and meets. The HE groups we attend, tend to be on the outskirts of the city. As long as we are prepared to travel a bit, so not sure we would manage so well without our car (and we dont ride bikes either!) If we need to go into the city for field trips, museum trips etc, we drive to our nearest Park&Ride, then take the bus in.

Probably stating the obvious to you but this is worth a look - www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/transport/around/buses/busroutes.htm

It will show you how you can travel around Cambridge by bus (as you know there is also a train station which takes an hour to London...)

We go into town for social reasons and it is almost impossible to park in residential roads in the evenings. We usually end up going to pay car parks but that may be frustrating and expensive for you. Parking for your car would be a key issue when looking at properties if you think - with a large family - you do need one.

P.S. I am a hugely enthusiastic supporter of the Cambridge football (soccer) team so if your DH is keen I can explain all about them!

You need to find out where your DH will mostly be working. The University covers a vast geography (relatively for Cambridge ). Labs are all over the place - some in central Cambridge, others right on the very outskirts, the same goes to a lesser extent for libraries although these are mostly more central (the UL is on the West side of town just off the aptly named 'West Road'). Say for example he's at the maths/science/genetics stations which are out towards Girton heading West, getting a house in say South Cambridge (eg Trumpington) would only put you 5 or so miles away but that would take 40 mins or so at least by car/bus (hence a big emphasis on cycling by the University).

You need to contact St Johns in the first instance to see if they have any family accommodation they can offer (unlikely but you never know). Then contact the university accommodation service (www.accommodation.cam.ac.uk).

Also, you can apply for an exemption to the 10 mile rule. The rule is applied loosely as it is (because postgrads can't afford to live in central Cam without college help), and being unable to afford to house your family within the limit would be grounds for an exemption. Then you could live somewhere like Ely (houses are much cheaper than in Cam) or in one of the villages. A yearly pass on the train between Ely and Cam is about £900 I think - check www.nationalrail.co.uk to find out.

I'm assuming that you may be going to live off savings if your DH is going to do postgrad, so to warn you - housing is v v v v expensive. You will not get the amount of space you are used to unless you are already very wealthy.

Also, I will echo the advice of others - I don't recommend driving a car in Cambridge. It is a hair-raising experience what with the sheer number of cyclists (not all of whom know the rules of the road), and the fact the streets are just not built for it. There's also a lack of parking and the council car parks are extortionate. It is normal to cycle or use the bus here, and once you get to the station in Cam you can pretty much reach everywhere on foot.

Finally, lots of people homeschool around Cambridgeshire. Others have put up the links above.

Thanks gals,

The problem is that my husband who is currently in the UK, visited Cambridge and he said that it is impossible for our family to live in a small cramped up house or flat is what they call it to begin with. I think we are too accustomed to living our life in a bigger space that we require the same there. Ideally, we know that will not happen but to get something central and at the same time big enough for my kids to be a little free and not prisoners. If we get a flat with college students as our neighbors, it is NOT going to be ideal. We will hear complaints and probably will be evicted due to kids running and their loud nature.

The suggestions that you all made are worthy to take into consideration and we understand that setting up a life of 3 years there will take some push back of what we don't want to do but we have to do. How do you all do your grocery shopping if you don't have a car? What if you have several bags and you need to carry a lot of groceries? You can't possibly strap it to your bike and ride jolly can you?

There is a lot to learn about the British lifestyle.

I am just a novice so forgive me.

SK

Ideally, we know that will not happen but to get something central and at the same time big enough for my kids to be a little free and not prisoners. If we get a flat with college students as our neighbors, it is NOT going to be ideal. We will hear complaints and probably will be evicted due to kids running and their loud nature.

Couple of things to bear in mind here:

1. Cambridge has lots and lots of parks centrally - often called 'Pieces' or 'Greens' or 'Commons'. If you look at Cambridge on Google maps and zoom in you will see the city is more green than buildings. Wherever you live centrally will not be far from a huge wide open space that kids can run around in. Also a lot of the green you see on the maps of Cambridge is college grounds - there will be a central court that only Fellows can walk on but Johns has vast amounts of grounds that the children will be able to play in.

2. Unless you are going to rent a super-duper luxury flat right near the station in the new developments your nearest neighbours will almost certainly be other students/families. Cambridge has an incredibly young demographic in terms of families and also the student/grad population. There isn't a street in town you could move into which won't already have families living in it and I would imagine the same will go for flats too. I suspect most landlords are well used to normal family/student noise as are the people living in town.

Please don't worry, moving country is a scary thing but Cambridge is well used to people moving there to study - you'll be made very welcome by the college. Could your husband get in touch with the MCR as well as the college accommodation officers etc and perhaps find some contacts whose brains you can pick in addition to us fabulous Mumsnetters There's also an Islamic Society who it might be worth getting in touch with too perhaps.

You would be surprised how much you can carry on a bike but the all supermarkets do online shopping and delivery which would probably be ideal for you, especially in your early weeks.

You also shop more often, and you get the children to help carry bags! You can wear a backpack and put a lot in that, and have a couple of decent size cloth carriers to get loads in. If you cycle, you have baskets and panniers, and backpacks.

You can use Streetcar, where you hire a car by the hour, and you can go to the non-central supermarkets where there are car parks.

Or, as acekicker said, online delivery.

Students also make noise, just perhaps at slightly different times.

But the accommodation that St John's will find for you would be suitable for families, and not mixed in with students, likely. It would be a small house somewhere near the college, most likely.

If you want loads of space and bathrooms in the house, you will need to be very rich, and/or live way out in a village somewhere. Not in the centre. And that would be a real shame, missed opportunity to learn a lot about another culture, especially for the children.

Remember too that it's not just that the island is small and crowded, and that some of these things are necessary for that reason - but also, that people actively choose to live this way. I remember some Americans at college who didn't adapt very well, because they couldn't ever get over the idea that we would all have the lifestyle they were used to if we could, and that while they were accepting of the fact that it might be too expensive/crowded to have that here, a few of them were a bit patronising and still gave off the attitude that people would want it if they could. They didn't realise that lots of people actually liked being in the centre of it all, having lots of little shops etc, the environmental benefits of cycling/walking, the cosiness of small older houses, the feeling of not being wasteful with resources/space/money, the huge number of cultural opportunities in very close proximity, the diversity, the liberal views, etc etc. It wasn't just that people were "making do" here because they couldn't have what the Americans were used to. The students who appreciated that got on much better. I was from north america myself. There were things from home that I missed and many things that I had to change my views on. In the end, I liked it so much I stayed. It was clear to me that people were choosing to be here, and that in their view, it was likely as good as or even better than what I was used to, and I wanted to be able to see it that way - so that's what I made the effort to do. And here I still am, many years later.

What is your budget for renting? Without knowing that it is impossible to give any meaningful advice.

Shopping for food can be done easily online and is delivered to your actual kitchen by all major supermarkets. Alternatively shop local and frequently - as you prefer - or a combination!

Also you have no idea about the variety and types of bikes here. Lots of folk have bike trailers and use these to shop with.

Friends leaving Cambridge for Spain told me that they can't wait to get. Ack as Cambridge is such a great place to bring up children. They have a 2 bedroom terrace house.

Leave all you can in storage in the USA, think of it as an adventure.

Millions manage in smaller accomodation than you will have in Cambridge. You just have to rethink.

Ocado and other shops bring food to your door. It's brilliant.

From what you say, village life may well suit you better. Or even a town on the train line into Cambridge. Saffron Walden to the south has bigger houses and good schools.

4 beds will cost anything upwards of £1200 per month to rent - this may still fall a long way short of US standards of spaciousness. Village rentals are not significantly cheaper than £1200 but you would get a detached house for this.

Why do you want to live the american way in the UK though?