Live in London/2primary kids/ job advert in Kent - shall I apply?

[worriednow1]

The job advert is a promotion for me + opportunity for kids to be in a local prep school with the discount. BUT it is a completely different pace of life in Kent. Is it a big disadvantage to move out of London to Kent? Kids pobably have more opportunities with London? If I change jobs here is a list of cons PROS:1.job satisfaction ( promotion), 2.kids in a prep school/ feeds into local grammar school at secondary level CONS 1.no parent support, 2.my hb needs to change jobs ( not a high earner £20,00+), 3. my child goes to gymnastics now but in a new job area - not many possibilities for gymnastics, 4.far from London ( 2 hours drive) 5.need to change house.
How woudl you weigh up these points please?

Depending where in Kent you are looking. Some parts of Kent are fairly easy to travel to London on the train. Moving DC to private does not necessarily mean they will pass. There are plenty that don't, especially now that the 11+ in Kent is changing. I think it may be worth investigating the school options in case they don't pass as in GS area the alternative options can be limited. Good luck with whatever you decide... :-)

Depends how much you like living in London really. I have moved to the suburbs from central London and regret it. It's a bit dull here in comparison.

As above posters say it very much depends where in Kent! We moved out from zone 2 to north west kent and it's still very commutable to London with quick trains etc. We love it - it feels so much easier to get to brilliant child friendly places, the coast, good road networks - we explore so much more now, we virtually never left our south London suburb before.

Def check out the secondary options though - if it's in a super selective area you do need to look at the alternatives to grammar sch.

We moved from London to Ashford four years ago (gone so quick) plus two kids. We have the high speed rail link (38 mins to St Pancras ?). More house for your money we have been able to put our kids in prep school. Always plenty to do with the kids this way. Lovely community feel better quality of life all round ...don't have the parents nearby but I would say we see them about the same as when we were living In Londo. Anyway . Good luck

Moved 7 years ago with 4 children 3 in primary. Now have last one in year 6 and have never regretted a moment. Also live in NW kent and there is lots of out of school activities Gymnastic being one of them NDN dd is a high level gymnast and doing very well.

I don't actually think that children have more opportunities is necessarily a plus as with more also comes additional problems. Having said that I have not noticed any differences in what our children do out of school activities and school based activities compared to our friends who still live in London. In fact in case of 2 of them our children do more than friends who live in London's kids do.

Yes different pace of life but for me that is 100% a plus. My children was allowed to be children longer and I have yet to have had any of my teenagers come home drunk (let along needing stomach pumped as in the case of 2 friends )