Shortlands or Chelsfield in Bromley - looking for advice on choosing area

[Max201501]

Dear All,

I am currently looking to move out of London and start a family in Bromley. I have seen two properties in Bromley: one terrance house is near Shortlands station and other detached house is on the warren road in Chelsfield. Similar price and size but much smaller external area for the terrance house in Shortlands.

Any advice on which one is better in terms of location and school? I have seen the high street in Orpington (don't like) and Bromely South town centre. It seems the Bromley South is a better one. For school, it seems the house in Chelsfield is definitely in Warren Road school catchment (0.2miles) and the terrace house in shortlands is in the centre of Highfield(0.6 miles) and Clare House (0.3mile).

Please advice which area you think is a better pick for me? Many thanks in advance.

If your planning on moving and sticking then you may need to consider secondary schools as well as you are aware Bromley school has small catchment areas. Shortlands have no secondary schools apart from Harris mixed in Beckenham and Harris Bromley girls.

If you live close to clare house then you will be in catchment for the langley school's which are very over subscribed but are outstanding schools.

Bromley is still in London....

What is your budget? Somewhere like Hayes, Bromley is better for primary and secondary schools tbh.

At 0.3 miles from Clare House you won't get in (bitter experience) Live in Beckenham and we didn't get an offer of any school in the end due to over subscription and some schools even doing siblings on distance. We live 360 yards from Clare House but it may as well be the moon.

We are now sending DD to an independent school. She would have had to miss reception (she had just turned 4 and Bromley kept banging on about her being below compulsory school age and therefore not obliged to offer her a reception place ).

And Langley Park for secondary will be tough. Last year the intake was less than a mile so very small.

That said Chelsfield doesn't have much in the way of secondaries.

Have a look at Bromley Education on their website and download their primary school leaflet. At the very very back in small print they have all the intake on distance for all their primaries for the last 3 years. Makes for scary reading but will help you pick a house/school more easily.
Otherwise it's just too much of a lottery.

We are in Beckenham too - the nearest school for us I think the furthest distance offered was less than 0.3 miles with most places going to siblings. We got our second choice although happy.

I'm more concerned with secondary - there's just isn't enough choice at that level.

According to the data clare house catchment is 0.4. But I agree hayes, West Wickham certain parts would be a better place to live with more choice of schools as well as a larger catchment area. There are some parts of Hayes and West Wickham where you can be in catchment for both Hayes secondary and langley schools.