New Forest Schools (state and private). Help Please!

[uhoh1973]

We are thinking of moving to the New Forest (preferably Brockenhurst). We have 2 children, girl aged 5 and boy aged 2. Our daughter is currently at our village primary school.

I have contacted the LEA and the only school with a space in our daughter's year in the area (Sway, Brockenhurst, New Milton, Burley etc) would be Beaulieu Village Primary School. Do MN's have any experience of how long you have to wait (on average) for a place to come up at a school? (Years?) I guess the LEA has to offer you an alternative?

If we are not keen on the alternative school (due to distance etc) does anyone have experience of the local private schools? Durlston Court? Ballard School? Walhampton School? If we are paying we would like something more academic. Any opinions?? Any tips?

Hi there, we live in Tiptoe and my 2 boys go to St Luke's in Sway, it is superb! I would go on a waiting list, I know people who have moved their children from Brockenhurst to Sway. As far as independents go, Durlston is up to 13 and very academic, Ballard goes all the way through to 16 I think and Walhampton is quite posh! Hope that helps x

All of the Forest state primary schools are pretty OK
All of the Forest traffic is pretty pants
The Forest secondary schools are OK
Brock College is fine
Lots of Forest people use private schools
but TBH you can relax more there than in most areas

Thanks for the input. One of my concerns is traffic. Not knowing where the children would go to school makes house hunting tricky and without a house you can't get a school place so its a bit of a catch 22. I'm worried about just moving down and then my daughter having a long (duration with summer traffic) commute to school when she is already in a good primary school here. I am thinking the solution is to wait til she is 11 and move her then when everyone is moving schools.

Oh wow, this all sounds very exciting!! ;-)

cubok
Why are you spamming threads to slag off Walhampton?

Ta1kinPeace, please note that I have provided comments from my own experience and if you think that the information provided in my review is not correct please provide correct information, instead of reacting negatively to the comments you might not like. I would be grateful if you could let me know if my comments were misleading