Please demystify Tunbridge Wells schools for me?

[mrsgrace]

DH, DD and I are considering a move to TW for DD to start reception in Sept 2015. Our budget is max £900k. DH will commute to Cannon St. Which areas should we be looking to ensure we are in or near catchment for good primary and grammar schools?

I appreciate this question has been asked a number of different ways but having trawled lots of threads I'm still at a loss for where to focus our search.

Many thanks in advance.

TW is quite tricky.

The best primary (Claremont) has such a small catchment you literally have to camp in their car park to get in. And you won't be in the catchment for the best grammar there.

We looked at TW but gave up as we essentially needed about £1.2m to £1.5m for the type of house we were after and we still couldn't be sure we would get into the right schools.

If think for the grammars you need to be in Queens road area and St Johns. But someone else will
Come along with better advice shortly.

For me the problem ended up being DH having a very long commute with London house prices.

We now live in Beckenham. Much shorter commute but we still failed to get DD an offer of any primary school and are now resigned to paying for private education until secondary.

It's a nightmare quandary the whole nice place to live with good housing and getting into good schools. Argh.

I wish you lots of luck.

You could do it backwards. If you want your DD to go to grammar in TW your only option is TWGGS, so why don't you give them a call, find out the cut off distance, work out where you need to live and then see what primaries are available to you? I suspect you'll want to live in the St Johns area and probably aim for St Johns school, but you'll end up living quite a distance away from the school if you want a nice house as the immediate area to St Johns school is not great. If you'll consider private (Rose Hill) the immediate area (Molyneux Park Road, Court Road, Oakdale Road, Earls Road) is lovely but very expensive. Don't even consider Bishops Down, only siblings can get in!!

At the moment the catchment for TWGGs is around 1.9-2 miles...so living near Claremont shouldn't be an issue. However as pointed out you need to be pretty much living on top of the school to get
Are you looking for state primary? Or can you do private? How long do you want to be in your house? Eg would you consider moving when DD is in Y5 to get nearer to TWGGS?

There is also a commuter coach which goes to CS. Clearly it takes longer but is always an option if you end up being further away from the train station.
What about St James? Relatively new head at the Juniors (ex deputy from Bishops Down) who is doing a good job.

Hi MrsGrace

The local talk section on the Mumsnet Kent site would be a good place to check out (if you haven't already!)

There are lots of helpful mumsnetters in TW

local.mumsnet.com/kent