Moving to London from NZ - Where to live for good primary school?

[KiwiEmma]

Hi there, we're planning to London from NZ early in 2010, and I'm trying to work out where to live so that I can get the girls into a good primary school (one will be 4.5, the other just turned 7 when we move).

We can live absolutely anywhere in the greater London area, the only requirement is that DH can commute into the city in about 30 - 45 mins, and that we can get into a decent school. We're planning to live fairly simply in a small house/flat, so I think that most suburbs outside the really posh places are affordable.

The only sort of place I don't want to move to is an area full of fantastic schools that I cannot get the girls into, or dubious schools that I can get them into.

Is there such a place to live?? I've done loads of research on the internet and am starting to think this is an impossible search!

Many thanks for any help you can give.

Emma

Hi Emma

I live in Rotherhithe (Zone 2), and we have several good schools near us, notably Alfred Salter (it got an 'outstanding' rating at its last Oftsted - this is the website www.alfredsalter.southwark.sch.uk/)

The school seems to have a fairly wide catchment area, you can check what it is on the Southwark Council website. It's generally a nice, quiet, family-orientated area to live in, and is on the tube (Jubilee line - two stops to London bridge) and a really easy commute to the City and Canary Wharf. Here it is on streetmap:

www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=535874&y=179556&z=110&sv=quebec+way&st=6&tl=Map+o f+Quebec+Way,+SE16&searchp=ids.srf&mapp=map.srf

Hope that helps!

You'll have to be careful about catchment areas Kiwi lots of good schools, but lots are also full. I'd work out where you want to live first as surely that's key to all of your happiness, and then check out the schools. Choose a few areas, then get in touch with the central education trusts for each one. That should give you an idea about place availability.

North London, Muswell Hill N10 is also a place to consider. A lovely villagey feel and fantastic for raising children. A number of schools all with excellent reputations so good chance your DD's will get into one of them although demand is high. House prices are extortionate so depending on your circumstances you would have to consider a flat. Also part of the appeal is that it is not on a direct tube link though there are several tubes nearby but with a 5/10 minute bus journey depending on where you live (Bounds Green, Highgate and East Finchley). Good luck.

Hi Emma,

I should warn you that the school situation in London is nightmarish at the moment. There are very few vacancies in primary schools at the moment in the younger age groups.

You are going to be arriving outside a main admission round. This means your choice will be limited to those schools which have vacancies. You may get lucky and have someone leave but you may not - so you can't bank on any one particular school. It's a very difficult situation.

I'd recommend around Woodside Park in North London (a bit further out and bit cheaper than Muswell Hill). There are 3 very good schools: Frith Manor, Moss Hall and Woodridge. Frith Manor and Moss Hall are 3 form entry so there's a better chance your children will get a place at one of them (although they are all over-subscribed)

Good luck with the move!

Its a city of 8 million people Emma. You need to narrow down your search areas somehow to enable people to help you, if you possibly can. Can dh's employers help at all?

What might help you is if you narrow the area. You could start by googling South East and London rail map which shows you all the train lines into London. Once you have an idea of where you want to live you can search on 'right move' to get an idea of prices which has link to a useful site which lets you see local schools. You can then look up the schools on the 'dfes' and 'ofsted' website and maybe even the local education authority websites to get an idea about catchment areas. Someone else has said you are arriving after most areas close their school applications so you may find you get offered 2 different schools at least to start with. Just in case this is any help, we live on the South West train line which goes directly into Waterloo. You can then change onto the tube for the city. You don't say whether you are renting or buying or how much but generally the closer you are to town the more expensive it will be (not always the case). We are close to Wimbledon. Our nearest school has an outstanding ofsted and all the other schools are good. Same can't be said for high school but thats a different issue. Good luck.

Thanks very much. I know that its a really vague query, but I wanted to keep it really wide so that I'd get lots of ideas. DH is going to be travelling a lot, although he will work in the City, so I'm being very flexible with where we live.

Thanks so much for your help, I've also posted on the general Education forum and I've got so many good ideas now.

Think I might even make a spreadsheet...

Cheers, Emma

where is he going to be travelling a lot to - within the UK or to known spots in Europe / the US? I think you should take this into account in deciding on which side of London to live - do you need to be near particular train stations (for UK travel) or airports (City Airport for Europe, or Heathrow for further afield / NY travel). It's a right pain travelling across London....

Hi ,I too can recommend Moss Hall and the North Finchley, woodside park area, that is N3, N12 - you will get a 3 bed house in the catchments for the good schools for about £350-400k, 4 bedder more towards 400/450 plus, flats about 250k,
really lovely area - i am here with 2 girls ages 5 and nearly 4 and i have met so many lovely people, soem really goood friends and a whole host of neighbours etc who are really down to earth adn fun, all helping ot pull togther, kids playing in each other's gardens etc.
Can drop at moss hall which is right next to tube and be in central london or city within 40/50 mins,
taxi from central london 30 quid!
local shopping is ok, some nice cafes and restaurants - clothes shops not too great but onlhy 10 mins or so in the car from brent cross,big shopping centre.
quite multi cultural too - jewish,japanese, indian, plus eastern europe

quite multi cultural too - jewish,japanese, indian, plus eastern europe

Translation: The "right" sort of multiculturalism. None of the wrong sorts who will slow down your child's class learning or bully your children, not overwhelming so that your child is part of a small minority of white kids, but enough to give you a nice liberal glow.

The hypocrisy on here makes me sick. If you lot really liked multiculturalism you'd not be basing your life around where your kids go to school, and there would be conversations about secondaries in Brent or Tower Hamlets on MN.

GrumpyYoungFogey - I think you're being very unfair on the previous poster. I know the schools/areas she is talking about and they are non-selective, non-denominational, very large schools with 90 per year group. So anyone living in the very tight catchment area - one that includes houses and flats of all descriptions - will get in.

I find your comments about "the right sort of multiculturalism" offensive to be honest and I speak as a non-Briton.

To the original poster, I also live in the Barnet Borough and recommend the schools. Nearly all are very good, whether community schools or religious.

I have a friend who moved to an area mid-school-year, and she contacted the local council to get a list of where there were school vacancies, then looked at the schools,then found somewhere to live.

It seemed like a sensible approach.

In our area the schools are always full, although throughout London I think there are always places that come out each year - it might be worth asking schools in any area you are interested in what their waiting lists are like.

Grumpyyoungfogey, the description of multiculturalism above just sounds like a description of the area. If you lived in an area that had Mix A (whatever that might be) and you sought a school with Mix B (more 'desirable') then yes, that would be a problem. I don't think this is the same. And I live in a very mixed area, with a mix of schools too, but they are all too full to recommend to the OP!

Grumpy - you have pounced on the poster in a really unfair way imho. She has made no judgement about the cultural mix in the school other than stating a fact about the mix.

I totally agree with Omicron - if she had sought out that mix that might be different but that is the mix of backgrounds predominant in her area.

It would help if you could say whether you are actively religious or not.

There are very many good church schools, both Catholic and Anglican, and with a reference from your current parish priest, you might secure an entry to a very good Faith school.

We used to live in Putney, which had some very good Faith schools, both Anglican (St Mary's and All Saints) and Catholic (Our Lady of Victories). Further west, both Barnes primary and East Sheen are good in terms of non-denominational state schools. There is also St Mary Magdalens in East Sheen (Catholic). Putney, Barnes, East Sheen, Richmond are lovely areas to live in, other kiwis (if that matters) and within fairly easy reach of Heathrow and Gatwick, and with good trainlines into the city for work. You have a villagey feel, high street shops, good parks, cafes, etc. Also, a few good fee paying schools nearby, such as The Hurlingham, Ibstock Place, Putney Park School, The Harrodian.

Hi Kiwiemma - Most of the posters (with the honourable exception of Kitstelsmum ) are recommending north London so I am going to plug South London for balance! We live in Balham, SW London, which is a great area for families and schools. We have Henry Cavendish and Ravenstone large primaries, plus a a RC Primary and a small CofE primary, if you are churchgoers. Catchement areas are tight, but there are a lot of affordable houses near both HCav and Ravenstone (unlike the holy grail of state primaries just up the road in Battersea, Honeywell School, where you have to pretty much live in a bunker under the schoool to get in and local houses command a huge premium). There are aso a number of very good private school in the area, if you are that way inclined. SW London has a lot of open spaces - Tooting Common, Clapham Common, Wadnsworth Common and Battersea Park - and there are a ton of facilities for families with young children. Commuting from Balham is either via the tube into Waterloo (also goes direct to the City) which is about 20 mins or overground train in Victoria Station, about 15 mins.

Tbh, there are lots of terrific areas in London, with great schools and family facilities. I would definitely get some advice from people who already work for your dh's firm - do you have friends already living in London? Getting all the way across town is time-consuming, so if you know people in Stoke Newington, you won't want to move to Wandsworth.

I suggest you ignore grumpy.

IME he prowls around this forum looking for people to stir up.

Can you not find something better to do?!

The mention of an area being "Multi-cultural", as pearlym did, is usually implying that this is somehow a virtue - such vibrant areas being so much more enlightened than the dull all-white primaries that still exist. Otherwise, why mention it at all?

I'm sure the OP is as in on the whole liberal double-think as every other hypocrite, but I'd love to see an honest answer to a genuinely naive Kiwi. Could go something like this:

Be aware! London is no longer an "English" city. White children with English as their native tongue are a minority in London. That's Greater London, which is not some core inner-city but a huge county, with twice the population of New Zealand, which includes vast swathes of surburbia and even farmland within its boundaries.

To a large extent, what might be called the respectable working class of ordinary folk has moved out, except in some unfashionable outer suburban districts. They have moved either to towns in the surrounding "Home Counties", or out of the South-East of England altogether.

Some of the professional middle-classes remain in London, in enclaves where it is prohibitively expensive to live. They either educate their children privately, or game the state schools admission system to get their children into "good" (read white and/or middle class) schools. This gaming gets even more intense by secondary education, as adolescence kicks in, and ones DCs might suffer worse than merely having their learning held back. A lot give up at this point and move to Bucks or Essex or somewhere "for the grammar schools".

That said, if you are moving halfway around the world you should have a decent enough salary to live somewhere not too unpleasant. And behind the latter day Tower of Babel reality, London i still a great city. But so is Rio de Janeiro or New York, and London should be approached with similar caveats to those places.

Can't advise you on schools, as I live in a provincial backwater, and thus send my children to the (undersubscribed) primary nearest my house, thus avoiding the endless angst of the Metropolitan liberal. But MN is the right place to find help, and you'll soon pick up the codes and hidden subtexts in each thread.

Good luck!

I have only made a few posts on mumsnet since joining and am pretty surprised and not a little disturbed at the vitriol from grumpy, in response to the facts I stated about the fact the area was multicultural area - i made no value judgement about that fact and nor is one implied.

I'd put my hand up to Finchley - Moss Hall, Frith and Northside also doing well.

Grumpy -what's up with you - the poster who put down about finchley was just stating it's multicularal - that's it - so what?

Finchley has well performing schools -it's wider area is called Barnet - and the schools are generally OK. Moss Hall school is great for commuting as 2 mins from Tube - Frith Manor not so, Northside is near a tube as well. But Barnet is overscribed across the authority.