Moving from Sydney to Surrey or Kent

[thebigclg]

Hello,
I'm shortly moving to London with my family including 2 primary school aged kids. We're trying to work out where to live outside of central London with decent fast train commute into central with a good concentration of nice schools. If you have any thoughts you can share on any of the following areas and the schools there, I would greatly appreciate it:
Beckenham
Bromley
Orpington
Chislehurst
Sevenoaks
Guildford
West Byfleet
Epsom
Red Hill
Thanks!

You need to get your head around whether you want your kids to go through the 11+ in Kent or not. If you want a state-funded education then they will go to a grammar school if they pass (about top 30% of county) and a non-selective school otherwise. Quite a risk for children moving to a new education system.

Guildford has nice schools and is a lovely town.

Have you thought about Petts Wood? Lovely area next to Orpington. Great community feel. Great primary school in Crofton which is large enough to usually offer 'in-year' places after a shortish wait. Also not in a full grammar area so the main secondaries don't suffer from the top slicing that happens in Kent (Petts Wood like Orpington is in the London Borough of Bromley) but still able to sit for Kent and Bexley grammars and Bromley's two superselective schools of Newstead (girls) and St Olaves (boys). Good transport links from Petts Wood station give you direct links to a wider range of stations including Victoria, London Bridge, Cannon St, Blackfriars, Kings Cross, Charing Cross.

I have friends in Beckenham who rate it but to be in catchment for the popular schools like Balgowan you have to practically live on the doorstep and then applying for in-year places you might struggle to get in.

Thanks for the input. We don't know if we'll end up staying long enough for the 11+ but if we did end up, we'd like to have the option. I'll add Petts Wood to the list to look at. My hubby is there at the moment and planning on taking a look out that way this weekend. Thanks again.

If you are looking at Independent schools then Eltham College and Dulwich College for boys or Bromley High for girls.

West Wickham is also a part of Bromley, good primary schools and good train links to Central London.

PettsWoods already explained about the 11+.

In Bromley friends are happy with Parish CoE but they worry about secondary school now as the link as a feeder school has been removed. There are talks to get a boy's only academy set up, there is already a girl's one.

In-year admission will be tough, especially if you need an Infant place (Reception to Y2), DD has several classmates who commuted to their old school until a place became available.

Private school or state school?

Where do you live/ where would you ideally live in Sydney, we can try and guess somewhere with a similar demographic?

Avoid redhill. Not nice.