Greater Manchester

[3pickles]

Hi,
Really looking for some guidance on schools in and around Manchester (in areas of the tram or frequent trains to the city centre).

We are relocating and my main priority is getting schools right for my children, secondary and primary aged.

I am looking for recommendations for non-selective secondary schools and primary schools that have excellent pastoral systems that are caring yet have robust systems for dealing with behaviour and bullying. I find ofsted reports and schools websites are quite limited in getting a true reflection on a school and would love some personal recommendations!

Thank you ☺️

You need to narrow down the area, Manchester is absolutely huge

Thank you, and understand that Manchester is vast.

With regards to areas, we need to live somewhere that is commutable to Manchester City centre by tram or train (30-45 minutes max), other than that our main priority is to get the schools right for the children.

We are relocating from a village just outside of Cambridge (that I went to primary school in and loved) and my son started at the same school. Ofsted reports were ok, but I wish I had trusted my instincts as had heard a few reports of unhappy parents and I really felt unsure about the head when I viewed it. Anyway, after the first year we ended up moving him as it really wasn’t a supportive environment, about a third of his class ended up moving to new schools within that first year! Friends that kept their children there have later said they wish they had moved their children too.

Before living here we lived in Nottingham. We like both city suburb and village life. So really our main goal is to find schools that the children will be happy in and thrive.

Due to the area that we could look at being so big, as you rightly pointed out. I feel that having a list of schools that people have recommended as having good pastoral support would probably be the best approach.