Bath & Surrounding villages - secondary schools

[GrampyRabbitz]

Good morning!
We are looking to move to the North Somerset area and are particularly keen on Norton St Phillip and Beckington.
Firstly, I would be very keen to hear from anyone in these areas as to where children go to secondary school as this is a very important factor in deciding where we would like to move to. Unfortunately we are not in a position to be able to afford private school so I am interested in the state options and whether parents in these areas get their first choice of secondary schools.
Secondly, I would also love to hear any recommendations of other similar villages in the area to consider. We are ideally looking for a village with a community feel, a pub or two and a convenience shop nearby for when I inevitably forget the milk!
many thanks

Ours are too young to have experience of schools, but the local state options are Selwood for middle school and Frome College for yr8 (I think) onwards. Others may have experience of them but they don’t have brilliant reputations locally. Some children go to Beechen Cliff and Hayesfield in Bath, depending on sex - I think they both have admission allocations for people outside the Bath council area, so entry there is possible. Then there are other state secondaries in Bradford on Avon and Trowbridge.

The area you are looking at is great - Beckington and NSP are both lovely and good for Frome or Bath on the D2 bus (and driving is OK). Beckington has the M&S garage, which is the most useful local shop, but NSP has a co-op. The pubs in Beckington are decent but not amazing. The George in NSP is lovely.

You should definitely consider Rode as well. It’s in the same area, has two excellent pubs (better than the Beckington ones), a nice post office/cafe/shop, a good playing field and nice community - there’s a big comedy festival every year. Freshford is lovely but more expensive (has a train station, which is handy), and Limpley Stoke has the best pub in the area - both are convenient for Bath. You could also consider Bradford on Avon if you are fine with a town, though beware of traffic and flooding.

Good luck!

Corsham - great small town, very friendly and a lovely pedestrian high street with restaurants, cafes and independent shops, (you might miss all this if you just drove through). Not an elite comprehensive but good ethos, pastoral care and results are good I think.

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply. Had not considered Rode but sounds like a definite possibility based on what you have said.

No problem, and happy to answer any questions! You could also look at Hinton Charterhouse and Wellow, which both adjoin NSP and are also very nice and I think fit your criteria.

I'm assuming you’re looking at the area north of Frome to have good Bath access, but if that’s less of an issue you could look west of Frome at Nunney and Mells which also fit your criteria perfectly