Thinking about moving to Berkshire...

[CLM121]

We're thinking about moving to the Berkshire area to start a family and as my husband is an IT contractor the contract work is more plentiful in and around Reading.

The problem is I have lived in Cardiff for most of my life and have no idea about the surrounding areas in and around Berkshire.

I am hoping you guys can help! The good thing is we know exactly what we want and as we're currently renting this gives us greater flexibility.

Here are our requirements;

1. Good Catholic Primary and Secondary schools
2. We want to find be in an area which is balanced between a semi-rural quiet village which has a strong community feel. Somewhere I can get involved with the local community, and not far (within an hour) from a train line directly into Reading.

And that is basically it! If you guys could throw up some options, I would really appreciate it. I can then do a bit of focused research before taking the plunge.

Thanks

Anyone? Bump!

well, an hour of Reading gives you tons of flexibility as so many (fast) trains go through there! Probably need to narrow it dwon to particular county (Berks, Bucks, Ox?)or shorter distance to Reading. 1hour gets you to Oxford and beyond to the Cotswolds for example, so tons of choice. Reading itself, I believe, has some very good schools.

lots of lovely places all round reading - remember that reading is near border of hampshire too so dont discount the areas just south of it over the border as it were (try mortimer, burghfield, spencers wood, hartley witney) catholic schools will prob be your starting point if that is important to you, as will budget as there are some very lovely but very pricey areas (e.g henley, marlow, pangbourne). further out towards newbury there are some nice areas too.

TBH Reading itself doesn't have fantastic schools! The surrounding councils have better reputations - unless of course you want to go independent education. There are plenty of gorgeous areas to live in around Reading. Wokingham is pretty nice, easy to get into Reading, with better schools and if your DH is only commuting around Berkshire you'd be pretty well placed there. North of Reading is Wallingford which is also lovely, and the Mortimer area is also pretty. I'm stuck in city centre Reading as DH commutes to London so I'm envious of your wide choice!

Berkshire is a very long, thin county so agree with others who suggest looking at Oxon & Hants.
My immediate suggestion would be the Newbury area but don't know about catholic schools. www.schoolsnet.com is useful for finding schools in a given area.

are you sure there is plentiful work for an it contractor ? my dh is contracting & very bored with his current role, but because the market isn't great, is staying put. Obviously depends what he does !

We live in Earley, very good road, very good local school (moved to get DC in there).

Parks nearby, shops, good links into Reading, good train link to London.

I live near Reading - good Catholic primary schools are plentiful pretty much everywhere in East Berkshire. The best Catholic secondary is St. Bernards in Slough (Grammer) but there is talk about it merging and losing Grammer status, otherwise there is a good selection of private Catholic secondary schools. I would stay away from Slough area as the primary Catholic schools are beyond full, even though they have some great ones.

BTW the areas I am specifically thinking of are Bracknell Forest/Sandhurst/Wokingham/Crowthorne