School advices for expat - All inputs on my thought appreciate.

[Hkelaine]

Hi all,

Have been spending the last two months reading on various websites and forums, esp for mumsnet, which I found the inputs/ experience sharing from all forumers here are invaluable.

We are moving in April 2020 and now the time is ticking for lots of preparation. The first thing we have to nail down by end of this year is home location. So we are planning a trip early Nov to check out some properties. So, would appreciate if anyone can share her thoughts below so we can plan better for the trip.

1. We prefer outer London or outside London for better value for money and still keep the job opportunity open as I believe the business activities are more robust there (I am of finance/ insurance/ consultancy). I can accept to travel up to 50mins to central London. We have two kids, 4 and 2. So, school, low crime, nice residential areas are our top priority. We also think to plan ahead to find a place close to comp schools as our backup while we aim for gramma. So, is it true that we can just focus on the distance from comp as the gramma schools just look at academic?

1. We have hired an education consultants and talked to some friends and property agents. So far, we have in our mind some places to look at. Could you please offer any comment or other suggestions you may have?

- Barnet - near mill hill as someone said Colindale is more for working class. We are also not sure about the very high ethnic diversity 

- Sutton - good schools but again we read that some areas inside are quite rough

- Berkhamsted, St Albans and harpenden - residential area but schools are over subscribed.  Should we be concerned?  Is there a place even outside London with excellent schools, which are not heavily over subscribed?

• Tonbridge well - nice areas but seems the neighbourhood area has high crime ratio

• Kingston/ Richmond - I found some houses eg in Twickenham within my budget (600k for 3beds). But seems the schools are again oversubscribed and even worse not too many backup.

• Reading - we are yet to research yet as the good school guide books we bought only cover London.

• Watford - some recommended St Albans/ Berkhamsted over Watford for living environment. Watford does offer better transportation and convenience, supermarket etc. Which is good as my wife will need several months to get her license and I may need to travel occasionally.

• some friends are asking me to consider Southampton and Winchester. Any opinion?

The more we research, the more we are overwhelmed by the choices and a matrix of the pros and cons. So we would deeply appreciate if you can share some light.

Many thanks.

Elaine.

For 400-609k you can manage a 3 bed with a reasonable commute to kings cross from Herts.

For St Albans that will be a very small 3 bed tho. Another 200k might get a ok sized one. At Albans is ridiculous

But ware Hertford Welwyn Stevenage
Wheathampstead Harpenden all doable.

Yep sadly knife crime is creeping out into the outer boroughs Kids are being targeted buy gangs to do the dirty work for them.

It’s very sad.

First area I lived in London I was very violently attacked with a crowbar after going shopping by a stranger for my handbag no warning just started hitting me. Second area, a very middle class area with many £1 million pound houses but someone made the great decision to close the police station and make it 30 mins drive away you would hear of kids being stabbed at 5pm. Lots of stabbings around the tube. If you look at statistics there 20,000 violent crimes (which excludes other crimes such as murder, burglary etc) per month in London - with a population of around 8 million that's a 3% chance of being violently attacked per person per year. Four of my friends had been violently attacked too, one in Islington, two in Pimlico. It's definitely not just estates with the criminal coming up first and or the other MN favourite of the criminal will politely ask first and all black people attacking each other as portrayed in the right wing media.

Others have mentioned location of work is going to massively affect that 50 min commute. I live out of London near Basingstoke and my DP works in St James it takes him around 1hr 20 mins to get to work and that includes the 20 min walk he chooses to take from Waterloo to St James.
We have friends who live on Lewisham and one of them works in Kings Cross her commute is 1hr 30min.

She has a 2 bed one reception terraced house in Lewisham for the same money around us she could have a four detached with at least two receptions. We are half way between Newbury and Basingstoke and if she lived here her commute would be slightly shorter or the same.
The vast majority of people who work in London have a commute of at least 1 hour, so 50 mins is putting you in the most expensive housing areas.

In your position I'd look in Sevenoaks, Orpington or Tunbridge Wells or thereabouts - particularly if you are commuting into Canary Wharf or the City. These are affluent, middle class areas, safe and with good schools. I do t think you have said where you need to commute too but 50 mins door to door might be difficult further out. Orpington has a 20 minute fast train service to London and has very good schools as the Grammars there are super selectives (so no catchments) making the comps good. Petts Wood is also a pleasant area. Reigate is a lovely area too but I don't know about the state schools there.

I would counsel against going anywhere that doesn't have any diversity as you may find it difficult to 'fit in'. Just from my observation. Don't be put off by diversity - it is what makes London great and different to other areas of the U.K. There are many safe areas even with a diverse population!

Some of the London grammars do have catchments - our 2 did and so did the next nearest. Very big catchments though and you could do test and move afterwards.

The Kent grammars also have catchments, pretty wide within Kent but different for each school. I live in Sevenoaks and would echo everything about Orpington, Sevenoaks and Tunbridge Wells being affluenf, desirable areas. Perhaps Orpington aside, some but not a great deal of ethnic diversity though!

You're going to make OP paranoid. Some areas in London do have high crime rates (all the mentioned places of Camden, Islington, Pimlico) but so do some places outside London. I've worked in over 100 state schools across London so have a good sense of what areas are actually like and it has little to do with house prices. Many of the very expensive areas close to central London are interspersed with some very rough areas so just because you pay 3 or 5M for a house, doesn't mean it's a safe area. And loads of schools are pretty rough. I even worked in one with 2 police officers on premises at all times and saw 6 police cars full of cops trying to break up gang fights. By contrast, I've done bits in almost all the secondary schools across the borough of Sutton and it's all lovely. And crime rates for the borough are actually lower than Sevenoaks, Guildford, St Albans etc and about the same as Winchester.

But anyway, the OP can always visit a bunch of areas and see what they fancy.

Yes but with respect, re crime rates in Sevenoaks etc, that’s not knife crime. The towns you’ve mentioned (St Albans etc) as well are (and it’s just personal opinion based purely on driving through, perhaps there are areas of Sutton that aren’t very built up with identikit roads and the odd 70’s High Rise) are also extremely attractive.

no child from my DDs Primary School who didn't have coaching (paid for or delivered by graduate level parents) has passed it in the last three years.

3 neices all now at the top grammar in Tonbridge area.
They were not coached or tutored through year 4 and 5. They were at a private primary that did a one week 11+ camp in August if year 5. (and oldest was only at the private school for 6 months prior to 11+)

I think that is

whoops, sorry random extra half sentence at the end!

SJane48S, yes Sutton town centre isn't the prettiest and I wouldn't recommend it to someone looking for a location with a lot of charm. But architecture is very varied and the South of Sutton isn't very built up, some homes sit on 1 acre + plots + you can walk to fields with sheep, lavender fields, woods, farms and farm shops etc.

@JoJoSM2 - I appreciate driving through somewhere you don’t always get to see the prettier bits so apologies! @steppemum I can only relate what I know to be fact from my DDs Primary (and those I know off going to Grammar from the neighbouring Primary), All without exception coached.

Lived in London for about 15 years in about 5 or 6 areas, all of which had high crime. It is so much safer where we live now - moved out a year ago and nothing has happened here in that time. Where we were a few days ago a child was stabbed and is now fighting for their life 5.30pm at the station, same station my DD would have used had we been there. Same thing happened last year. Couple of weeks ago there was a shooting, a vigilante group dealt with it so not in statistics.

When my son was 9 a 9 year old boy in his class with SN had has Dad, who was a lovely man who did school pick-up everyday killed on his way to work as a postman. So not everyone has been as lucky as you and one little boy has no Daddy. I've still got head injuries from being attacked. People don't even bother reporting a lot of crime there , police are now 30 minutes drive away. Anyway I will hide the thread as it upsets me especially when I think about the little boy, he was the most vulnerable of all the children in that class and an only child.

Panda, where did you live? It sounds horrendous.

SJane48S, don’t worry lol We didn’t move to Sutton because we fell in love with the town centre (doubt anyone does)- it was more of an Excel spreadsheet operation and a few months of research.

And @JoJoSM2 I think that the lesson the OP can pick up from all this, make compromises for a greater good! Unless you’re rolling in it, something’s got to bend

@JoJoSM2 - noted on the supermarket delivery. I feel I am living in a developing city here :(. Regarding gang culture, someone told me I have to keep up with it in London anyway :(((

@OneHanded - my preliminary search was based on Good School Guide - London South book. That gives me very limited school choices in Bromley. I am aware someone critized that the GSG book list only part of the school. So I may be wrong about Bromley.

@PastTheGin @PandaTurtle - I haven’t landed my job yet. The purpose of locating myself within accessible location to central London just for not ruling out my job opportunity after I settle down. I am totally with you about the crime concern. From the place we come from, crime is so rare. We can walk out without any alert at midnight without problem. The first time I heard about knife crime in London I was really shocked. I am also in a FB group of an area in Hertfordshire. Someone posted a CCTV video at her home (village) entrance showing a man wearing a mask scouting at the entrance at mid night. That makes me really worried but the residents said it was already much better than most part in London.

@madeyemoodysmum - is 600k doable for 3beds in Berkhamsted too? I am also looking at hitchin. I know there is rightmove but interestingly I found 600k is also doable in St Albans and the houses are pretty decent. So i suspect I was looking at some not so convenience areas. So, I wanna get a sense on Berkhamsted and shortlisted a few areas before we land next week for a walk around and home hunting. Interesting, so many people told me even not bother to check out Richmond/Kingston, but I found 8 properties in Twickenham/ strawberry hill within my budget.

If not fixed to London have you considered Leeds or Manchester?

OP, this useful (government) site allows you to compare school performance - www.gov.uk/school-performance-tables

Cheaper houses in an otherwise expensive location are never without downsides - bad location, structural problems etc

Thx @SJane48S @Hoppinggreen. Will look into it.

@JoJoSM2 - you really read me about the paranoid. Knife crime is much rarer than you can imagine in Hong Kong. Now I am thinking whether I should take the sag tech risk moving to a place with nice people/ culture and education.

Don't bank on the Sutton grammar schools. You have to be extremely academic to get in, with 15 applicants per place (from latest exams just done). This is more so than "normal" grammars" in grammar counties like Essex because there are only a few grammar schools in the area and so people come from all over London and beyond to try and get their kids in. You dont know yet how academic your kids will be. They are also not very diverse if that matters to you.

Have a look at Caterham/Coulsdon/South Croydon in Surrey as they tick a lot of your boxes and still possible to go to Sutton grammars if your child gets in. Reasonable secondaries, a lot of choice of primaries, great independent schools if you go down that route. Great transport into central London (London Bridge which is better for the city).

Anywhere near London looks bad on crime stats but its not a hotbed of crime and children are perfectly safe to walk home from school etc.

My friend is from HK and lives in Caterham, child in local primary school. She says they are very happy with it, especially after spending this summer back in HK visiting family.

I’m surprised you’ve had houses coming up in Twickenham/Strawberry Hill (hope they aren’t ex coucil). They are very nice places to live and you’d want Orleans Park for secondary there.

On the crime front, honestly, there’s a lot of scaremongering in here. I’ve lived in London for almost 20 years. I’ve never been a victim of crime and have never witness any. I don’t have any friends who have been attacked. Gangs in London do exist but they are not wide spread. The police does not recognise any gang activity in the boroughs of Richmond, Kingston and Sutton.
If you look at average crime rates in Hong Kong, then many London boroughs are below that level.
I can see that if someone had bad experience/lived in a dodgy area or sent their kids to an inner city school, they’ll have a very negative view. However, that’s totally not how most of London is.

If you’re going to look at St Albans or Hitchin, it’d be worth asking the council if they have any school places as it seems from the threads on here that it’s near impossible to get a decent school for an in year admission.

And anyway, you can google St Albans stabbing, Sevenoaks stabbing, Winchester stabbing. Wherever. And you’ll get results.

Knife crime in SW London has gone completely crazy, it was nowhere near this bad three years ago when DS1 was out and about. It is out of control. Far too many of DD's friends have been mugged at knifepoint and most of the time in very nice areas on very expensive residential roads. Muggers travel to get the best pickings. One of her friends was mugged at knifepoint after being dropped slightly off target for a party by an uber in a road of £5m+ houses on Saturday night.

There are places where groups of teens are known to congregate in the evenings and a gang with knives will turn up and grab as much as possible before the police arrive. There was a very nasty incident on Palwell Common 2 weeks ago, a very expensive area in East Sheen, and they are a regular occurence at The Old Deer Park in Richmond and Bishops Park, Putney. A group of DD's friends were mugged in the summer holidays by a knife gang mid afternoon in the Bishops Park whilst playing tennis and all made to hand over their phones, money etc. The nastiness of the attacks has also increased, kids are getting beaten up now and one was not only badly beaten to concussion point but he and a friend were also stripped and left naked. Fortunately they were only 10m away from the friend's house they were visiting.

The police are doing shove all about any of this, the perpetrators of the worst incident are known and identifiable but it's he says she says on eye witness statements. And the police drone on about their terrible home circumstances etc as if that justifies their behaviour. I don't see how it's going to improve under the current mayor who seems to just shrug his shoulders and say I've done all I can when it obviously isn't enough.

Any parent with teenagers who are the primary targets of armed muggings can tell you how awful things are at the moment, it is a very big problem and according to the lovely mayor it will take a generation to improve.