Relocation to Birmingham with a 6 year old boy (Year 2)

[ekate]

We are relocating to Birmingham from North Wales around December 2021. Both my husband and I will be working at the University of Birmingham.

Here we are looking for recommendations of where to settle in Birmingham with a budget of up to 500K for a 3-bed with a decent garden. Ideally we would like to live close to the University campus in Edgbaston. With close I mean up to 30-40 min. by foot or a short train commute away. We have a 6-year old son, who will be in Year 2 - transferring in the middle of the school year. Not sure how the transfer and school place assignment is regulated when moving to a new area in Year 2. He is currently in an independent school, but we would be very happy with a good state primary and secondary options close by, if they offer an after-school program until 5.30pm. Independent schools are also still an option. In sum, we find it hard to narrow down options not being local. We are about to drive down to Birmingham end of next week for a first house hunting attempt, and would appreciate advice on nice areas to live and good schools, so we can narrow down options for areas, as well as school enquiries.

The university has a station so the train line is an obvious corridor, otherwise edgebaston, harbourne are places to look, there's good independents but no idea on spaces

Do you want to live in Birmingham? With that budget you could live further out and get the train in.

Alvechurch and Bromsgrove are on the line to university and have good schools etc and are in Worcestershire. Your budget may stretch to Barnt Green which is closest to Birmingham out of the Worcestershire areas on the train line but unsure.

Bournville would be worth a look, that’s only the 2nd train stop after university and is a lovely place to live. Real village feel but still close to the city centre. Might be hard to get into the local primary.

Harbourne will feel more urban than the other places above (though it isn’t really! Still very green) and has more choice of independent schools. A few years ago it only had 1 decent primary but that might have changed.

Birmingham has a grammar school system, this has a nock on effect on how academic the secondary comprehensive and independent schools are. A few years down the line but worth thinking about.

Worcestershire doesn’t have a grammar system but in a lot of places the schools are 3 tier eg. First, middle and high school.

Thank you both! I posted another response but it just disappeared, so starting over: We would like to live in Birmingham directly to cycle in/commute by foot, ideally. Before Wales we lived in a London commuter belt town and I developed a pronounced allergy against delayed and disrupted train commutes to go in to work. Thanks for the advice regarding the grammar school system in Birmingham, I wasn't aware and will now look into this further. Do you have any concrete schools you can recommend (state and independent)? We are looking for one that is not too conservative and open to different faiths/no faiths. A Christian values school would be absolutely fine, as long as it has progressive values overall and lots of extracurricular activities.

The bluecoat school in harborne is a very well regarded prep school, unsure of how progressive it is but I imagine it has a fairly diverse intake. That’s walking distance from the university.

Harborne Primary (state) was always very good but I was put off that it didn’t have a playing field! State secondary schools for boys used to be really poor in harborne, people would rely on grammar and if their sons didn’t get in they would go private. I think the secondary schools have improved a lot though in recent years though.

All of the state primary schools around Bounrville are good and Kings Norton’s Boys/Girls are consistently good secondary schools. Catchment areas vary in size so which one would depend a lot on where you move to.

Further west, you won’t be near the train line for university but Mosley is nice with good schools also. Unsure of specifics.

Selly Oak close to the uni has a mixture of schools, I wouldn’t live there though it’s very very studenty. The majority of housing around there will be student lets.

State schools in edgebaston are more hit and miss, I imagine a lot of people who live in the nicer parts send their kids to independent schools.

The grammar schools closest to university will either be the co-ed King Edward VI Fiveways or Single sex King Edward VI camp hill. The King Edward groups has several grammar schools and one private boys schools which is basically on the university campus (King Edwards school)

Hope that’s helpful!

Kings Heath has some great schools. Kings Heath primary, Colmore Juniors and Wheelers lane juniors are all rated “good” by Ofsted and for secondarys, there are the two (eye-wateringly) competitive grammars, or Swanshurst girls, wheelers lane tech college (boys) or Queensbridge ( mixed) who are all “excellent”.

Kings heath primary is broke and has reduced their hours. They don’t offer Friday afternoons.

Camp hill, and as far as I know all the King Edwards, have changed their catchment criteria so you need to be proximate to the schools. They were finding people were travelling past five ways to get to camp hill. Something to bear in mind if you want a shot at them.

Why type of area would you like OP (Lively, quiet, lots of shops ect)? I know you would like to be able to walk to work which probably just leaves edgbaston which is quite a nice area to be honest. The areas that surround edgbaston are very studenty so bare that in mind. Further down you've got Northfield which has some nice parts but also has some awful parts. Then theres Longbridge which has a fairly new town centre, college and it's own train station which takes you straight to the university. Then theres Rubery and Cofton which are lovely areas (especially Cofton) but dont have a train station so you would need to use a bus to get to work.

Agree the logical place to start is along the Cross City trainline, heading South from the University. A lot of people at the University cycle in along the canal and / or the Rea Valley Cycle route.

Bournville would be where you would want to look. People will tell you to avoid Northfield (High Street is pretty sad) but quite a few of the houses that would get you into KNBS or KNGS (for secondary) have a Northfield address - Northfield covers a lot of mixed areas. Bournville and the 'nice side' of KN and the 'nice side' of Northfield have several decent Primaries.
There are some nice houses in some parts of Selly Park too, but you'd struggle more with schools there.

A lot of Harborne is cyclable to the University and has good Primaries but people then tend to go Private for secondary if they don't get a (ridiculously competitive) Grammar school place. Parking is at a premium in Harborne.

Bham isn't a 'grammar school area' in the way you see somewhere like Kent is. But there are a few grammars and they are very, very, very competitive. Contact the King Edwards Foundation for more information as the situation has changed since my dc were that age. However, there is no 'universal 11+' and no 'stigma' for not being one of a tiny % of people who gets a grammar school place.

Of course the better a Primary school is perceived to be, the less likelihood there is to be places mid- year.

Have a look at West House School in Edgbaston. Boys' Prep, caters for quirky as well as not so quirky, academically very good but has a wide ranging curriculum and really does bring out the best in each child.

www.westhouseprep.com/

Thank you all! Very helpful background info so far. We have now found a house in Moor Pool, Harborne and working towards contract exchange end of this month, and completion mid November. We could not reach the two primary schools yet in the catchment area (Harborne primary and Chad Vale), neither by phone no by email, very frustrating. However, the school year has only just started, so hoping we will be more successful next week. Blue coats is oversubscribed, 100 kids waiting for a place in year 2. I can only imagine how long the waiting lists are for Harborne primary and Chad Vale... It is a nerve-wracking and I don't want my child to be sent to some random school far away.

Hello, I just picked up on this thread. I am assuming you already found a school but I just wanted to endorse the comment about West House School in Edgbaston. I have two sons. They absolutely loved and thrived at this school. It doesn't blow its trumpet as much as the other independent schools but genuinly it is pretty amazing at turning out happy and well rounded kids.

becjo - thank you! It's great to hear that your boys got on well there. We are proponents of mixed education, but will look into this option after such a glowing recommendation. And no, we haven't got a school place yet. We went down to Birmingham from Wales for a trial day at Hallfield last week and are now waiting for assessment results, fingers crossed. In the meantime we were able to get hold of the state schools close to our home - Chad Vale or Harborne Primary - and both have very long waiting lists, so there is no fallback option for us yet. Harborne primary suggested we should first move and then apply for a school place, with 6-year old being out of school for a few weeks being "inevitable". What a suggestion! Not something people with jobs can afford to do.

Moor Green Primary is one state primary I recommend to look at. It's technically Moseley but on the border of Kings Heath and Stirchley. It has a very green ethos. It's got popular since it went outstanding so not sure they'd have any spaces but worth an ask. They have a mini farm (sheep, goats, peacocks, rabbits, snakes, guinea pigs, chickens etc) a forest school on site and lots of green spaces around the school. They also have a gate from the playground onto the allotments so have their own allotment.

Thank you Tappetytap! This school sounds lovely, but we will definitely not be in the catchment area with a house in Harborne.

The school went outstanding fairly recently (Feb 2019) so has only had a catchment for this year and last year. There may well be spaces in your sons year and it's quite close to the university (1.5 miles). My friends kids go to Harborne and they recommended it although it's very very popular so places are hard to come by. They said the things they missed though were greenery as its an old victorian building and they said it is now a 4 form entry so quite a lot of kids. Schools in cities have transient populations so I'm sure if you want Harborne someone will leave.
As a side note I'm sure you already know but apart from Bournville Village Primary and some faith schools Birmingham doesn't have set catchments. If for reception places a school has more people apply for it than they have places for then siblings are given priority and then they do distance from the centre of the playground to people front doors as the crow flies until the spaces are filled. Once the offers for reception are sent out then people can join whatever waiting lists they want to join regardless of location.