Relocating from North East to Leatherhead

[Elsiemary]

My husband has a job in Leatherhead and we have decided to move our family down to the South East. We have two children who will be going into years 6 and 4 in September. We are looking for a place to live that is no more than 30 minutes drive to Leatherhead and has good state primary and secondary schools. Does anybody have any suggestions/tips?

Hi
I moved from Newcastle upon tyne to the south east over 20 yrs ago.
We live in Horsham and my husband works in Leatherhead which is about 25/30 minutes away.
Horsham is small market town with excellent rail links, good shopping (not a patch on the north east ) the local schools are superb..especially when they get to senior school.
There are many places in between here and Leatherhead if you do find some where and would like some info let me know and I will more than happily help.
Where are you moving from?

I forgot to mention all 4 of my children have attended school in the south east and have all done very well, my youngest two are now attending the local 6th form college ( Richard Collyer)

Thankyou, we have looked at some villages south of Leatherhead but nothing really 'stood out'. A colleague of my husband had mentioned Horsham so when we come down in 3 weeks we will look around it.....
We are moving from Eaglescliffe which is a small, lively suburb of Stockton on Tees

If you are looking closer to Leatherhead I would look at Howard of Effingham catchment. Or Guildford or Dorking.

I know of Howard, have rang them but not heard back.... think it is probably difficult to get in there?

Don't do it :o
How can oyu leave the NE? And why have you never been on one of our meet ups?
(Unless of course you have!)
Ah well, good luck darn saaaf

I know Stockton well..I have an Aunt who lives very near to Eaglescliffe.
Good luck!
One thing I will say is if your buying a house the property in Sussex is slightly cheaper.
But most places that have been mentioned have good rail links, excellent schools etc.
The plus point for Horsham is easy access to Gatwick, Heathrow , M25 and 23.
D :)

If your child is in year 6 and you live in the Howard catchment (obtainable from SurreyCC) they will get into the Howard. I'm not sure it is as open about visits as for instance the Guildford schools, but it does do a lot of community outreach and is a good school (I am very impressed by the behaviour of its pupils). It has an open evening in September.
If you want to actually visit then I would phone again, they also have most information on their website (just don't click through on their partner school).

Know nothing about the schools there but lived in that area in my early twenties. If your dcs are approaching secondary school age I really would look at living in one of the bigger towns & your dh commuting from there or they will die of boredom!

Guildford would be my first choice...

Epsom & Horsham also good.

Thankyou so much for all replies. Stealthpolarbear love the NE but just not working for us as a family.... dcs will be moody teenagers soon ...

Elsiemary - for Howard you are safer living in catchment and attending 1 of the 6 feeder primarys, per the admissions criteria. All the feeder schools for the Howard are pretty good and you should be able to get into at least 1 of them. Admissions criteria is essentially:
1 SEN etc
2 siblings,
3 partner school & in catchment
4 catchment (not in partner school)
5 other

You can also look at SCC website for details of admissions for current year 6 to see the cut off points in that year.

Debsymoore - can you recommend any schools in Horsham? We are coming down in a couple of weeks so thought if I knew of which secondary (and primary) schools had a good name it would be a starting point :)

I can recommend Westcott based Surrey Hills Primary school as a lovely village school that feeds in to Dorking secondary schools at year 7. It is a caring and nurturing school that would help your transition.

Hiya Elsiemary. I'm from Darlington originally but now live in Epsom. Good schools, very potterable town centre, good facilities - 15-20 mins drive from Leatherhead and the M25.

Good luck x.