Does anyone know Ingatestone? Schools, feel etc?

[ingatestonequestions]

We’re considering relocating this year and Ingatestone keeps coming up as an option as it’s in a good location both for visiting family and getting to work.

We’ve visited a couple of times and quite liked it but don’t know anyone living there. Does anyone have any insight on it? What is it like as a place to live, I know it’s relatively small, does
it feel very quiet?

Can anyone comment on the schools? Our DC are currently 5 and 7 so would need primary initially. For secondary, I know the Anglo European school is in the village, reports about it online are very conflicting! As my DC are still young I’m not sure yet if they’d be likely to get into/be suited to the super selectives in Chelmsford.

Grateful for any intelligence on these questions or anything else really 😊

Bump

We have family that live there, it's fine apparently nothing big to report, very quiet, you'll need to use Chelmsford a lot for shopping etc

Angelo European has been getting more popular over the years with better reviews as time goes on. Schools in that area tend to as be okay

Thank you! I was wondering if that might be the case about Chelmsford. I don’t know the city very well even though I grew up not too far away. I’ve read online that it’s fairly nice but not sure how true that is!

I’m really not sure how I feel about the Anglo European. We’re currently in an area which is supposed to have good schools (Harpenden/St Albans) although much more traditional and no grammars.

Chelmsfords gone through a lot of upgrades in the last 10 years and is much better now! I'd happily move back (we live the next town over as its cheaper)

Has a nice garden centre as far as I remember

Yes I’ve read this in a few places about Chelmsford. I can’t remember the last time I went there but it was at least ten years ago. I used to go there as a teenager for ice skating occasionally 😂

We would ideally prefer to move somewhere a bit smaller though which is why we were attracted to Ingatestone!

Bump for the evening crowd, just in case 😊

I haven’t lived there but used to live close by. It’s nice, we briefly considered it too but ruled it out as the trains aren’t as frequent as from other stations. Maybe not as much of a problem now though with hybrid working etc.

Bump just in case there is anyone else out there…

I live in Ingatestone and my children have been to the infants, juniors and are both currently at the Anglo European.

We love living here! It’s a very friendly place with a village feel…lovely shops, pubs and places to eat. We have a library, post office and train station. The train’s (when not striking!) run every half and hour and make it very easy to get to London. Because of this though the property prices are very high!

With regard to the schools, we are very lucky to have an infant, junior and secondary school in walking distance. They are all really good schools…although the Anglo gets a mixed response! I personally have been very happy with it, both my kids are under SENCO and they are really hot on mental well-being and good pastoral care. There is also so many opportunities with all the different languages they do there and overseas travel. The drama and music department is excellent too.

The infants is a lovely little school which is rated outstanding and the juniors is rated good but again, is a lovely school with lots of after school clubs and an excellent head teacher.

Hope this helps! Happy to answer any other questions…