Would you move to an area with great schools if neighbours would be very different from you?

[flabbyapronbelly]

Hello there
Wonder what peoples opinions are on this, am afraid its a long one - me and my husband are in a bit of a dilemma.
We live in a small house (terraced 2 bed, we split one bedroom to make a tiny 3rd bedroom. Downstairs has just a kitchen and a sitting room/ diner) but it is in a nice area and we have good friends around the town. Our current catchment schools are not that great so we are looking to move. We have 2 kids - 5 and nearly 2.
If we stayed in our town, but moved to the other side we could stay in touch with our friends and our daughter could stay at her school until time to move up (with some of her existing friends). We would be able to get a slightly bigger house, but not much but would get into the better schools which have slightly above average results.
My dilemma is, that if we moved about 20 miles north, we could afford a much bigger house - gain much more family living space and our kids would be in catchment for really good schools all with outstanding results. The downside is it would mean our daughter would have to change primary schools and we would be quite far from our friends so would obviously take some time to build up local friends again. Also, the areas around the houses we could afford seem to be full of quite old couples (empty nesters) and looks quite conservative according to the Acorn classifications. We are a multi cultural family so not sure we would fit in that well especially as it seems there are not that many young families in the immediate area, though it is only a couple of miles away from a large very multi cultural big town and obviously must be some others around!
I know its a very long post but just wondering what people reckon as I cannot decide what is best and my husband is also on the fence on the issue!
Thanks very much if you made it through this far!

Hi, I can appreciate it must be a tough dilemma.

We moved 25 miles from friends to the other side of the county because we wanted our DC to attend the catholic secondary school. That was 8 years ago, and while it did take time to make new friends, having primary school aged children means that happens fairly quickly. Plus, for us, we can get back to see our old friends in about 45 mins, so we haven't completely lost touch with them.

If there are great schools in the new area, then I guess there must be enough families living locally to fill them, so perhaps it wont be quite so full of empty nesters as you fear.

Do check that the new area has places in the primary schools that you like, up to Year 3, schools are very constrained on the number of children they can take once a year group is full.

I don't really think it is a tough dilemma.if you want to do the best for your children move them to the very best school possible.if that means moving to an area where you have no friends so be it.But you are speaking to a mother who moved continents because her dc's were exceedingly unhappy and disturbed.

There must be other families if it's a good area to move to get into the catchment of good school. Fingers crossed they are not all Daily Mail readers

I am not a empty nester, or conservative and I would be welcoming to any multicultural family. In fact all my friends are multicultural and shock horror I read the daily mail. Stop being so snobbish big tilly mint.

Well thanks for your thoughts. Think it may be worth going for. I thought I'd link to the type of properties we may be able to consider - i have never lived in these types of areas before so I know I am probably bringing forward quite a few stereotypes. They just look a bit net curtain twitching/ garden knome loving for my liking - but perhaps I am being too superficial!
Just don't want to regret such a big change for the family.
1 house: www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-33319439.html
another one: www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-33685841.html
To give you an idea of the type of area we are looking at.

we did your option 1, moved across town to slightly above ave secondary schools, we didn't even consider your option 2 as we love our town and have alot of friends here.

We're all very happy

Can't speak for the empty nesters, but if its any help, coming from outside you could take one look down our road and assume it's a whites only area (the Acorn profile is all Times reading yuppie apparently) but that's just the way it's happened and certainly no one is prejudiced round here (have lived here 10 years and have had various nationalities/colours, no one has ever moved for reasons other than job/family change).

I think the age/family situation might be more of an issue than colour, but only in respect of it will be a harder process to get to know the neighbours as you haven't got the common ground of children to start with. As long as you are nice neighbours I can't see why it would be a problem though!

cat64 - taken on board your point, is truth in that indeed.
Racism towards kids though would surely be far worse than me looking down on someone's choice of home/ garden decoration?

My husbands' work (full time) would only then be about 5 miles away, though he only has to end the day there (depot), so as he can already start his days work from home would be no great advantage to it being that much closer.
My work would be a lot further away (30 miles) - but looking at a change relatively soon anyway and could just about do it on a temporary basis until found something close by again (and I only work part time -2.5 days)