Moving for secondaries - property

[May172010]

We are far away from considering any secondary schools as our DD is still young but nearly everyone we know is looking to move outside London for their secondary education. The reasons given are no gangs, safer, better education, bigger houses.
However, I am more inclined to move even more centrally when our DD is older and going to a secondary school.
We are in Muswell Hill and it’s lovely but since (in normal times) we like to spend all our time in London (museums etc) moving even further out to buy a bigger place, since we can’t afford a bigger place in Muswell Hill, just doesn’t feel right.
We saw a place in East Finchley, a rather rundown place for £950k, and then a 3 bedroom apartment in a gorgeous building in West Hampstead for £899k and I am thinking that West Hampstead sounds like a better idea. Paying £1m for a rundown house in zone 3 with not the nicest high street doesn’t sound so appealing.
We have 1 child and won’t have anymore so a large apartment centrally sounds like a better idea. As for the secondary schools, I am sure there are some decent ones around the West Hampstead/Hampstead area and we obviously wouldn’t move until we find a decent one.
We are not British born so maybe we are thinking about this differently but I just wanted to hear your thoughts as to why everyone is moving outside London for their education.
Thank you

You'd better look up the school's admission criteria. Some of them have catchments that are absolutely tiny. You could live on one side of a street and qualify to attend and the people on the other side of the street don't.

There are usually maps available. What you don't want is to buy an apartment and find you're not able to get into any of the schools...and then your child's on the train to Zone 2 or 3 anyway.

I live near the areas you're looking at and can give you some insight, but if your children are young things at secondary level can change a huge amount before they get to that stage. No-one can tell you how particular schools will be in 10+ years' time.

East Finchley is great for schools, don't know the primaries so well (though Martin is well-regarded) but at secondary you have Archer (very sought-after, has a postcode catchment) and Fortismere on the MH side, also Wren (church school). All extremely popular.

There's a recent thread on here discussing the pros and cons of East Finchley - have a look at the two "where are the nice areas to live in London?" threads down the page.

West Hampstead is (if the Finchleyites will forgive me for saying this) much nicer an area than EF. Fantastic transport links, lovely high street, walkable to the Heath, strong community, great primary schools for all tastes (Beckford - soon to be re-named West Hampstead Primary - is a great all-round local school, Emmanuel is much-loved by the church-going, Kingsgate gets excellent SATs results if that's your main concern). The local secondary is Hampstead, technically just over the border in NW2 but West Hampstead kids get in. It's a good school with a diverse intake (which means people can be snobby about it), but has a new head so will be interesting to see how he does. In the southern bits of WH kids can get into UCL Academy, which is wildly popular if not to all tastes.

The main problem with WH at secondary level is that lots of families in the area send their kids up the hill to the private schools in Hampstead "proper" (WH does not see itself as part of Hampstead), which means people can be dismissive of the local schools. People in the habit of going to church to get a primary place tend to carry on the habit in order to get a place at a church secondary as well, some children end up travelling quite far as a result.

As far as leaving London is concerned - there will always be people who don't want to bring up their kids in the city but equally there are plenty of us who see the benefits of staying. You needn't feel bad if you fall into the latter camp. State schools at secondary level are often better in London in fact than outside - there's been decades of investment to bring them up from the doldrums of the 80s and early 90s.

Please do bear in mind what I said earlier about things changing between now and when your children get to secondary age though!

Look at how many schools there are in London. Clearly lots of people send their children to school here!

Some people do move out but London state schools on average outperform schools in many other towns and cities.

In 2014/15, about 61% of London pupils achieved this, compared to 54% on average across England and higher than any other English region. There are also far fewer schools falling below the ‘floor standard’ where too few pupils get good GCSEs and progress as expected.

Pupils eligible for free school meals perform better in London than the rest of the country, and even the schools in areas where low pay is most common are above the English average.

Parliament Hill girls school is Ofsted rated as good and top 10pc for non selective schools nationally for GCSE.

Thank you both for your response.
As you say, a lot can change in 10 years.
We will stay in Muswell Hill for primary so it’s a long way away still for us but we will do our research on secondaries. We are in the catchment for Fortismere (at least for now!)
Always liked West Hampstead and is more central although Muswell Hill is great.

@Zinnia since you know the area well. Is this any good?
Heath Court, 10-12 Frognal, Hampstead, NW3
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-71261517.html

That seems quite good value for Frognal - though it's NW3 so Hampstead without the "West" (WH runs between Finchley Road and Kilburn High Road). You might want to compare it with sold prices on the road, but Frognal can get busy with traffic, especially at school run times. School traffic in Hampstead is notoriously dreadful.

I know lots of people who are desperate to get their kids into fortismere and Alexandra park school. I’d look carefully as to whether a move would be an upgrade or downgrade education wise.

Thank you. Will do that

@Somewhereelsewhere thank you. Obviously we wouldn’t move unless it better for our DD education wise. Fortismere looks great though so if we can’t find anything better we wouldn’t move until our DD has finished her school

I find this thread very interesting, most people want to move to Muswell Hill for the secondary schools rather than the other way around.

Maybe ask about the services charge, some property here can charge you 5-7k easily per year, some others just 1-2k

Well if you want to move a bit more centrally there's always CSFG ... not sure about secondaries in West Hampstead. Guess if you are churchy that opens up a few more options. Lots of people in the center do church e.g marylebone etc.

But as people said service charges can be ridiculous in the centre so do be careful.

yes, brits leave london especially post-Covid. I reckon a lot more mc people will leave now that they dont have to commute in 5 days a week and wont have to suffer such tiny houses/flats with kids etc. But only you know if it's worth it for you.

I reckon a lot more mc people will leave now that they dont have to commute in 5 days a week

A very shortsighted view. Anyone quitting London now is going to be completely screwed when their boss announces that everyone has got to be back in the office full time next year because 1. The virus is a thing of the past and 2. Productivity is down the swanny. If you’re thinking of quitting London because you’re banking on “WFH” for the next 20 or 30 years I would be extremely cautious. It’s very easy to sack the person who has relocated to the back of beyond and is never in the office, compared to the one who turns up to work every day.

Very interesting, everyone has got so used to this WFH thing, but realistically it isn't the best working model for a lot of business, I do think a lot of people have not thought about the long term picture.
We moved out of London 8 years ago, DH had set up his own business and we thought we wanted a new life, luckily only went within an hour's train from London.
3 years later DH ended up working in London again, commuting 3 hours a day door to door 5 days a week. Yes we had a really lovely house but you can't get that time back and it just made for a much more disjointed life.
We are now looking to buy back in London and it's very hard going from a 5 bedroom house to a 2/3 bed flat 🤯