best place for schools within Greater London?

[countrysidemuffin]

Our daughter is about 3 years now and we are considering buying a house. We can?t afford private education but would like the best education the state can provide.

1. I work in Liverpool Street and husband works in Canary Wharf. We would like to keep the travel time to less than 1 hour (max).

1. We would like to buy a 3/4 bed house. Our budget is about 500K. We can cut down on number of rooms - our most important consideration is that the place should have the best primary and secondary schools.
2. We can move basically anywhere within Greater London to get best primary and secondary schools. I would like to avoid Kent and Surrey ? travel costs just unbearable.

Any suggestions where we should move? Which are the best areas in and around London with commute time of about 1Hr to Canary Wharf and Liverpool Street station, with best primary and secondary schools?

Thanks for reading my post.

Best schools in London are hugely oversubscribed so whereever you go, make sure that the house you buy is within one or two roads of the school to give you the best chance of being allocated place.

Thanks Mirry. Where in London/Greater London?

500k for 3/4 beds is going to push you out of Central London - I live in one of the cheapest central areas and 500k would only get you a 2 bed flat here - you need at least £650k for 3 beds.

If you don't want Surrey/Kent, then you could look at Essex - handy for CW and Liverpool Street.

Where I am (sw London- richmond borough) 500k would not get you a 4 bed house and prob not a 3 bed in some cases within catchment. May differ outside this area as it is more expensive generally.

May I put a word in for Surbiton/ewell/stoneleigh? Excellent primaries and secondaries and we've just bought a house in the Berrylands area on Surbiton for 500k. It's 15 mins into Waterloo from Surbo, but longer from Ewell and Stoneleigh. I have friends in West Byfleet and Weybridge with reasonable commutes and there are great schools there. Essex way may be better for you, South Woodford, Buckhurst HIll, and Wanstead are lovely areas although I don't know much about the schools there.

LB Barnet have excellent primary and secondaries as well and you could probably get a 3 bed house near one of these for about £500,000, but they tend to get snapped up quickly. LB Hackney is also worth a look as it has some good schools although I think that housing is more expensive. It has good transport links with Liverpool Street

honor oak park/ forest hill. all primaries are excellent. wd take twenty mins to canada water

Pinner, Eastcote, Ruislip, Northwood, Bushey all have great schools, friendly communities and good rail links to London.

South Woodford /Wanstead in Redbridge have properties at that price and have some good primary schools. We live close to Nightingale primary where my dd will start next year.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/property/1460697-Wanstead-vs-South-Woodford-advice-needed

Another one recommending Eastcote/Pinner/Ruislip. Excellent schools, good transport links in or out of London and you'd easily get a 3-4 bedroom house for 500K.

south woodford/woodford green ok for primaries but not brilliant for secondary

Sutton/Croydon would get you a fair bit of house for 500k, and good primary and secondary schools (especially Sutton which has superselective grammars) but not sure you'd be within the 1hr commuting time.

Am in Ruislip. For our school applications, we had to list 6 schools. My first three were rated outstanding and last three were good. These were schools in the immediate area so no struggle at all to find a good primary school. Tube lines have metropolitan, Piccadilly and central plus overground. My station is South Ruislip and can get to Stratford in about an hour and also to Marylebone on overground. 500k will get you a reasonable enough house in this area.