Glasgow or Edinburgh v Birmingham UK

[UrsiHun]

Hey there, not sure it’s the right place to start a thread. I would like to find out about family life in Scotland. I’m British but have lived in Germany for 12 years and we want to go back next year. We have friends inn Birmingham but are thinking of moving somewhere quieter and greener an led yetnwith enough to offer children and parents.
Many thanks for any advice in advance.

Birmingham doesn't have catchments! Or is that the problem you mean? All but a couple of schools go on distance, which unfortunately changes each year according to cohort sizes/sibling numbers etc.
I like Scotland, but it is too cold/wet for me to live permanently- I'm slowly drifting southwards, hopefully I'll be in Cornwall/Devon/Scillies by retirement age

The east coast is drier than west coast but colder

True. As an Eastcoaster I wouldn't live in Glasgow because I hate the rain and dampness, not that I love the cold winds here in the east either!
I love Edinburgh. Perth and Dundee are fine to live in but I don't hear great things about the secondary schools in Dundee. Broughty Ferry would be nice though.
Although I'm very fond of Aberdeen it's quite far from everywhere else and doesn't appeal to everyone.

I might be wrong but from what I've read there are catchment areas for school in Brum too. For the good schools it's as little as 0,3m which is a little scary. Or am I misinformed?

There are only three schools (of 300+ primaries) in Birmingham with true catchments (i.e. if you want X school you must live in X, Y, Z streets) the rest go in distance from school. However, schools are so over-subscribed that yes, for some schools the distance is very short. If, for example, a school takes 60 per year, and 30 places go to siblings, only 30 places can be filled, and if there are thirty children living less than 100m (in flats for instance) then the distance cut-off would be 100m. And there's no way to know whether this is the case when you apply. It's pretty stressful; you're right to be wary of it.

It's not like other areas (which I think Scotland operates this system) whereby if you live in X, Y, Z streets you are guaranteed a place at X School. I have no idea how places operate that if there is a large increase in birthrate!

Kings, it mostly works but I think it's been under strain a little in some of the popular areas in Glasgow and Edinburgh. We also had a temporary issue locally where there were too many p1s registered. Parents were offered guaranteed places at other local schools if they wanted but in the end a temporary classroom was installed over the summer and the school was ultimately expanded. Obviously if you move into an area there may not immediately be a place in the class you need and you may be offered an alternative or need to wait but I think that's quite rare. When we moved into a new build family estate, we were in catchment for a school that wasn't the closest as this was deemed to be the one with the space available for the newly created streets. I think most people were successful in getting placing requests at the closer school though. We moved before DC started school.

@prettybird shame. I live in a tenement that went up for sale when the previous tenant died, same with lots on our street. It hadn’t been decorated in decades. Wood chip and 4 layers of wallpaper in the kitchen! They’d also boarded up the bookcases next to the fireplace in the bedroom.

Thanks to you all! I will be starting threads in Local to get details of individual areas.
Thanks again for taking time to answer my questions. Very excited about moving back to the UK :)

Born and raised in BIrmingham, I'm a proud Brummie. It has changed so much over the past 30 years, not for the good, sadly. It's become very run down.

I've never been to Scotland, so I can't comment on that.

Just to warn you Ursihun most of the Local boards have Tumbleweed blowing through them.

One of the problems is they can't be accessed from the App

What's tumbleweed?

They're deserted. Tumbleweed blowing through somewhere is an expression that the place is deserted. (I think it's an expression from the American mid-West where balls of the weed roll through an empty town).

That is such a good term! Thanks for the warning prettybird!

Can't believe this thread has reached its third page and no-one's mentioned Portobello

I moved here from southern England nearly 20 years ago when my DDs were in primary school, and it's been the most fantastic place to bring up children and transition to becoming an empty-nester. OP, Portobello is Edinburgh's seaside, with a two-mile beach and sandy prom, a thriving local community, good primary and secondary schools, and about 20 minutes on the bus (a very good service) from the city centre. I couldn't have found a better place to live and I thoroughly recommend it. Loads going on for all ages, and the beach and prom are fabulous if you and your children enjoy the outdoors.

House prices have gone up a lot since I moved here, but there are still houses to be had in your price bracket. How about this?

espc.com/property/3-brunstane-gardens-joppa-edinburgh-eh15-2qw/35712953?sid=200856

If you need more space than that, you could always try the area in and around Musselburgh, a little further out:

espc.com/property/4-grannus-mews-inveresk-musselburgh-eh21-7tt/35696794?sid=200856

Great suggestion! Portobello was my very choice as I started looking into moving to the UK . If only the job market for social workers were as good for as as it is kn Birmingham....

@UrsiHun Linlithgow has 5 primaries and one secondary school so wherever you are in Linlithgow you would go to one of them and they are all very good. The secondary school gets a very good reputation. Linlithgow is a super town for children...lots of clubs and activities, busy local events calendar and loads of beautiful countryside on your doorstep.