area in Kent

[UMESH1]

between Maidstone, Ashford and Tunbridge Wells which is better area to live in Kent. I am looking from Schools (Grammar Schools at later stage) and commute to work to London point of view.

It all depends on budget and time and cost prepared to commute. If you don’t get grammar some of the faith schools are good but generally many of the secondary moderns are not that great.

Ashford near the Station is pretty soulless but you do have the high speed link - there are pretty villages but public transport isn’t the greatest.

Sevenoaks is popular and quick commute but prices are high.

I quite like Tonbridge- fast trains and good grammars. However I know an emergency glazing person and he said Tonbridge is always on his list of places to fix smashed in windows.

Personally I love being just outside Kent in borough of Bromley with good transport links and great schools. DCs can still get to Tonbridge grammar, Weald, Bexley grammars, Dartford grammars, St Olaves and Newstead so far more choice and DCs are not being ferried around in mum’s taxi but can travel independently.

Ashford has fast trains to London but (apologies to anyone living there!) Is a bit grim (but there may be nice parts I haven't seen). Maidstone has some nice villages on the outskirts, affordable properties and a range of shops but a very mixed demographic and problems with homelessness & drugs. Tunbridge Wells is really nice, more upmarket than either Maidstone or Ashford but the property market is more expensive. We live in Borough Green which technically is Sevenoaks but without the Sevenoaks house prices and we have access to both the Tonbridge, Maidstone & Tunbridge Wells grammars, a couple of the Tonbridge States and a good local State school (Wrotham) and our own train station (48 minutes into London). The adjoining villages of Ightham, Wrotham and Platt are pretty. Tonbridge has a better range of schools than Tunbridge Wells or Maidstone (one of which my DD goes to)is further up the train line to London than TW and has affordable property. It doesn't always have a great local reputation (I've heard it called Scumbridge which is a bit unfair) but I like it although the range of shops isn't great. I know families with children at most the Maidstone, Tunbridge and Tunbridge Wells schools so if you have any particular questions about a school then happy to help!

I've worked in both Ashford and Maidstone - I concur with a PP's view that some parts of Ashford are a bit grim; I do know people who live in both and commute happily enough. Personal experience is all Tunbridge Wells as I grew up and moved back here 16 years ago after years away. DD went to TWGGS (as did I many moons ago), my niece went to Tonbridge grammar, nephew to Judd. Faith-wise, Bennett is good and there are also good non selective schools both in Tonbridge (Hill View) and outside (Uplands) TW. Commute is good when trains run on time, as with everywhere and especially if you work close to London Bridge, Charing Cross or Cannon Street.

Tonbridge has a good balance of excellent schools and (I assume) much cheaper housing than Bromley or Sevenoaks.

Thanks Jane - this is really helpful. Sorry for the late reply, i have been on a bit of a travel! Are you saying, if you live in Borough Green you can also apply for Grammars in Tonbridge, Maidstone and TW? This seems like a great encatchment area. I work in Blackfriars, so connectivity in London is not an issue. it's just making sure, i can find a place which is good for kids.

www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/find-a-school-in-england

That’s where you can find all the stats on schools. Generally, unless you’re Church of England or Catholic, you’re unlikely to get a decent school if your children don’t get into a grammar.

As above, you’d be better off in outer London as you can apply to a number of grammars but be in a catchment of an excellent non-selective school too. Like Petts Wood says, the borough of Bromley is good for that. Sutton would be a great option too with 5 grammars in the borough + excellent non-selective schools.

Oh, with regards to which grammars you can apply from where, you can have a look at the admissions policies on their websites.

Uplands really isn't all that. Heathfield is much better.

@UMESH1 most of the trains from Borough Green go to Victoria but there are also Blackfriars trains which DH gets.BG isn’t ugly but I’m more of an old pretty village person so if it wasn’t for DH wanting less than a 5 minute walk to the station, we would have gone for the adjoining villages of Wrotham or Ightham. As well as being in the catchment area for the Tonbridge, Maidstone & TW grammars, if you have DD then there is also the Weald annexe close by in Sevenoaks.

I’m going to have to disagree with JoJo re decent secondary States. DH is vehemently anti grammar so this was a concern when we moved here. I’d agree there are fewer and you need to pick location carefully. DD has just started at Hillview in Tonbridge which is decent academically and providing her with lots of opportunities in terms of music and performing arts. Wrotham and Meopham are also both decent. Bennett performs well academically (although it’s a faith school and you’d need to be a practicing Christian) and Trinity (newish school, also Faith) is already producing good results. So it’s not Grammar or ‘do the kids’ secondaries only.

If I were you, I’d do a lot of driving around and find the place that feels right to you. Maidstone and Ashford have a very different feel to affluent Tunbridge Wells. We have some exceptionally pretty villages and lovely countryside. I’d avoid Medway completely. Bromley, Orpington and Swanley are very built up and very suburban and the first two are really just London suburbs, not personally what I wanted in a move out of London but that’s just me!

Canterbury has good schools and is 55 mins to London on HS1

Season ticket from Canterbury including HS is £6696 a year (thst is before the prices go up in Jam). That is over there and a half times more then my outer London / edge of Kent ticket. You can do a lot with £4,800!!

Just being the devils advocate (sorry @PettsWoodParadise!) the house prices are a lot more reasonable in Canterbury so the OP would save on property price if not the rail fare! it’s got heaps of history and charm, offers a lot on the arts and music front and has two Universities. It’s also the only borough in Kent that voted Labour, if you’re coming from a left leading Remain London bubble (& obviously I have no idea if that’s the OP) then you might feel more at home than in the rest of Kent which is distinctly Tory and Leave.

Left leaning not leading - half asleep butter fingers!

Yes compromise on rail prices but houses much more affordable and a short journey to the coast (Whitstable) too. Actually please don't come we don't want it crowded out it's awful here

if you’re coming from a left leading Remain London bubble (& obviously I have no idea if that’s the OP) then you might feel more at home than in the rest of Kent which is distinctly Tory and Leave.

Canterbury may be the only borough in Kent that voted Labour (influenced by the presence of two universities, I wonder?), however
www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36616172

Tunbridge Wells was the county's only district that voted to stay in the EU, with 54.9% voting to remain and 45.1% to leave. Turnout there was 79%.

Places and schools change eg SKA in t Wells is now an excellent senior school after many years of being characterised as a sink school.Tonbridge is changing in nature too with loads of 'young professionals' living in town gradually changing the nature of the shops and restaurants and presumably having high expectations of schools going forward.
If you are commuting or have expectations of your teenagers having to do so bear the distance to station in mind. I have spent more than 12 years dropping teenagers at tunbridge Wells station which has restricted their freedom as well as my own! In other words, villages come at a social price , not to say that they don't have a lot to offer when your children are young.

Near Ashford are lots of nice villages which connect by train or a short drive to Ashford International where the high speed service is great. Wye, Chilham, Chartham, Brook, Great chart. Ashford itself isn't the nicest place to live. In terms of grammars Highworth is very well regarded for girls but knatchbull less so for boys, most parents try to get their kids boys into Simon Langton but it can be tricky. Super high performers in the 11+ commute to Tonbridge for grammars. Wye free school is a very good option if you're in catchment for it and fail 11+. The North and towers are awful so you'd need a very good back up if you don't get through at the 11+. Maidstone isn't the nicest town to live in but has decent grammars. You might also consider canterbury (or surrounding villages). Very easy commute and great grammars. Lovely historic town too.

Kentadvice.co.uk has shedloads of info on all Kent schools
Not every grammar is equal. And if your DC do not pass Kent test then non-grammar alternatives can be very ropey indeed.
FWIW I think the grammars around TW/Tonbridge and Canterbury are better than ashford , but some of these are super-selective. No idea about Maidstone.

For a boy Ashford doesn't have a good grammar - Knorton Thatchbull (probably spelled wrong) isn't well regarded so you'd be aiming for Judd if you get full marks at 11+ (and are willing to do the 40 minutes on the train every day) or trying to find a place at Barton Court or Simon Langton. Like PP said the Wye Free School (Wye is a village just out of Ashford with a train station so very easy to get to) is the only good non grammar in the Ashford-Canterbury area so a massive plus as a back up if you don't pass the 11+. The fast train line into London works very well but obviously is a huge expense (£6k plus per year).

Maidstone has 4 Grammars. Invicta and Maidstone Girls for girls and Maidstone Boys and Oakwood for Boys. Invicta has a bit of a reputation for high expectations and possibly over pushing its students - daughters of a friend who go there are very arty and complain about feeling failures in certain subjects. Maidstone Girls gets good results, a not especially lovely brown uniform and a reputation of not being super selective (I know of girls who narrowly failed the 11+ getting last minute places).

Maidstone Boys has a better reputation than Oakwood but friends with boys at Oakwood think it’s a nice, focused but not overly pressured environment.

We did go to see Valley Park (state secondary) in Maidstone. We’re out of catchment but they have musical scholarships. It’s absolutely huge and bizarrely has a farm in the middle of the school! In terms of academic performance, it was alright but not worth the effort of the scholarship process.

West Malling (one train stop down from us in Borough Green) is a really lovely town with more blue plaques on houses than you’d expect this far out of London. It has a huge estate (Kings Hill) on the outskirts which can be a bit like stepping into the Stepford Wives set during the day but there are some nice huge houses if you like new builds. The local secondary (the Malling School) is terrible but bus links to Tonbridge and TW are good and plenty of kids go to Grammars in both. Quite a few of DDs fellow year 7’s at Hillview School for Girls commute in from West Malling.The Grammars in Maidstone are an 8 minute train journey away. Again, it’s an historic and lovely looking town with a lot of restaurants, shops and nice pubs so maybe another option?

We are in Tunbridge Wells and I have three (so far - one more to go!) in grammar schools here, but we are also churchgoers, so also had Bennett and St Gregs as options. Be careful with catchments for the TW grammars - you don't say if you have boys or girls, but TWGGS can (in some years) have very small catchments - last year it went out to Plaxtol and beyond but that was very unusual. Skinners' now has a local catchment preference, with very few school places for external catchments - and most of those will be for East Sussex boys. Orpington and beyond, which used to be in catchment now won't be.

I don't really know Ashford and Maidstone in terms of nice places to live - as pp have said, I think there are some lovely villages around both, but living in either town (anecdotally) isn't great. Tonbridge is also a good place to look - schools are great, both at primary and secondary, there are a lot more trains than from TW, fares are lower, as are house prices - even though they have a Waitrose and we don't . Just check the flood plain maps before you buy.

Just on the above & the change to Skinners catchment, of the people I know whose boys took the 11+, passed & have just started in Year 7 this year, 2 friends in Robertsbridge (East Sussex) who wanted Skinners got Tunbridge Wells Grammar for Boys. The 2 parents I know in Borough Green who wanted Skinners both got Skinners. The catchment area may have changed then but still appears to cover quite a bit of Kent?

You can check the catchment on the website - it is still fairly large, but now favours West Kent. Until last year it didn't really matter where you lived, it was purely on score - DS1 has children from Hastings, Eastbourne, SE London in his year group - DS2 who is in Y7, has a much more local (TW, Tonbridge etc)intake. The point I was trying to make is check the admissions criteria!

It's maybe a bit of a stretch to say that the Tonbridge secondaries are 'great'. TOGS, Judd and Weald might be, and I've heard generally good (if mixed) things about Hillview, but if you've got boys who don't pass the 11+ then your options are more limited. I don't know huge numbers who are desperate for places at Hayesbrook and Hugh Christie, though of course plenty are happy there.

I think that’s a fair point that if you have boys, aren’t going the 11+ route and aren’t able to go for a faith place your choices are more limited but then no boys from here have gone either Hugh Christie or Hayesbrook which probably speaks for itself! So far, I’m happy we went for Hillview and have nothing but good things to say. However it’s a big school that’s non selective - they stream (4 streams) according to SATS and have a strict behaviour policy. DD is in the top streams and is very geekily well behaved but from what she’s said, one or two of her friends in the bottom sets are playing up more and are falling foul of the very detention happy system. I guess this is part of adjusting to secondary school mainly though and they have very good Progress 8 scores (measurement of improvement between SATS and GCSE’s).