Can you recommend an area within an hour or so commute of Milton Keynes...

[eleven59]

...where there are good schools and affordable property please?

I'd be grateful for any advice.

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-55143668.html

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-52504396.html

I love looking for houses, how many rooms do you need?

Needs work but

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-54267164.html?premiumA=true

Wooten in South Northants
V good schools there and affordable housing apparently - friend up there has an impressive house for 350

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-35943696.html?premiumA=true

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-52544098.html?premiumA=true

Thanks for the links, nice houses especially like the one in Winslow. I think when the time comes, we may just have to pick an area, go for it and hope we can get the kids in school!

Towcester, Brackley and Buckingham are all expanding so provisions for the existing schools are being put in place, so a fairly good chance of getting a place both at Primary and Secondary. Commute to MK is fine.

I'd choose Winslow over Buckingham, though the villages between those two are also nice. Other nice North Bucks villages: Stewkley, Mursley, Swanbourne, Whitchurch, Quainton, Soulbury, Aston Abbotts, Cublington. Most of those have excellent village primaries, and you are in catchment for either Royal Latin or the Aylesbury grammars. The new Winslow secondary is very highly regarded, if the Grammars aren't an option.
I suppose the only issue would be budget - I don't know how big a house you'd need, but £400k might not get you all that much.

I lived in Leighton Buzzard (linslade) for a few years, loved it. I think you can also get quite a lot property wise for your money because its Bedfordshire and not Buckinghamshire.

Soulbury was nice too.

Bit late back to this but good schools in MK include:
Infant - Ashbrook (Two Mile Ash), Holmwood (Great Holm), Glastonbury Thorn (Shenley Church End)
Junior - Two Mile Ash (in Two Mile Ash )
Primary - Caroline Hasslett

Senior - Denbigh (Shenley Church End), Shenley Brook End, Oakgrove. Plus you can also try to get into the grammar schools in Buckingham (Royal Latin), Aylesbury (Aylesbury Grammar for boys and Aylesbury High for girls) or Leighton Buzzard (sorry, not sure of the names) - but I'd look at transport to them - there are organised coaches but if all else is equal then it would be good to be closer to the pick up points for your chosen school if that makes sense...

There's a school finder on some property websites and I think on here - but you have to play around with the settings because instead of taking a list of all the schools in MK, then giving the top 10/20 etc, it takes MK to be a point (based on a postcode) then if you ask for the top 10 schools it looks for the 10 closest schools and ranks them, meaning that the schools that comes top of the 'top 10 schools in MK' list is actually only about the 7th best school in MK - the better ones only show up in the Top 20 or Top 40 schools in MK lists because they're further away from the centre. and what's worrying is that they really didn't get why this was a problem when I emailed them to ask about the differences - I suspect it was designed by someone who has no idea about choosing schools in medium sized towns. But it's worth bearing in mind!

(And conversely when you search for secondary schools because there are many fewer schools, if you do a search on the top 40 secondary schools in MK, the best one comes up as something like in Northampton (there's a very good boys school there!) because it just looks for the closest 40 secondary schools to the point defined as the centre of MK, regardless of the fact of how many schools there are in MK!).