Relocating to Cumbria and looking for advice on the best areas with good Secondary schools

[HappySmithy]

Hello everyone, we are relocating to Cumbria for my husbands work, can people please give me any advice about nice areas with good secondary schools. His work will be all over Cumbria so we aren't tied to a particular spot.

Solway Community school is rated good in all areas. I don’t have personal experience of the school but know the area.
The Solway Firth is a lovely coastal area. Not too busy even during peak holiday times.
Lots of coastal properties, villages and rural properties. Not expensive to buy. Newer properties in Silloth. Independent shops and cafes etc.
We know Allonby well. Everyone is very friendly and welcoming.
Cockermouth is lovely too. Cockermouth school is also good.
Just some examples of properties. Lots of older and sea view properties too.
Good luck with your search.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/163435739#/?channel=RES_BUY

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/164675609#/?channel=RES_BUY

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/166220876#/?channel=RES_BUY

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/166098386#/?channel=RES_BUY

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/166632986#/?channel=RES_NEW

My opinion of Allonby is it's right on the West coast and during winter is very quiet and remote . It has a couple of pubs a corner shop that sells take away food for day visitors drinks , sandwiches exc ) and another shop ( Twentymans , that is the same , well known for its ice cream and then there to really cater for the caravan parks i.e you couldn't do a shop there . If course that might sound like heaven to you , but not me to live
I visit Silloth regularly but that is for a walk and a trip to a cafe , I wouldn't live there .
agree take a look at Cockermouth , it's much larger , decent shops , great school and a few things to do.
Going away from West
Cumbria you have the holiday hotspots Keswick , Windermere , Ambleside etc again nice to visit but wouldn't live there.

Penrith area ( Eden valley ) might be worth looking at . Close to M6 , lots of different houses quite easy to get to Carlisle or for heading south.

How well do you know Cumbria ? It's a large rural county , maybe start by coming here and take a look at all the larger towns to get a feel for the place .
One thing to consider ( and a shock when you move here ) is healthcare Drs , hospitals and dentists are thin on the ground .

I have been living rurally for the past 15 years, my closest town is 25 miles away, where my daughter currently goes to school, and most hospital appointments are 100 miles away ( really) so I am used to traveling for everyday things. We have been to Cumbria many times, for daytrips etc, but decided where to live is a little more daunting.

There's a grammar school in Penrith but the best non selective schools in North/West Cumbria are Keswick and Cockermouth. Keswick has a more "traditional" ethos I would say, and is smaller, but both are good and have decent exam results. The demographics of Keswick (lots of retired people, second homes etc) mean that a lot of the pupils come from outside the catchment area so you wouldn't necessarily need to live in Keswick itself to get a place there. Personally, though I love to visit Keswick, I wouldn't want to live there - it's expensive, the population is too transient and particularly in the Summer it's too busy for my taste. But all my children went to school there and were very happy. Equally I have friends who have done very well at Cockermouth and at QEGS in Penrith. I don't know anything about the schools in Carlisle or the South Lakes sorry.
My children are all grown up now but when we were looking all the schools I've mentioned were oversubscribed and getting an in year admission could be tricky, but I think we're in a bit of a dip birth rate wise at the moment so it may be a bit easier now.
Good luck with your move. We've been in Cumbria for over 25 years now and never regretted it.

School performance Westmorland

https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/schools-by-type?step=default&table=schools&region=943&geographic=la&for=secondary

School performance Cumberland

https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/schools-by-type?step=default&table=schools&geographic=la&for=secondary&region=942

The best performing schools are in Westmorland, but, of the top four, three at least are oversubscribed. I would live in any of the well above average, above average or average school areas of Westmorland very happily - but, south lakes/kirkby Lonsdale much more expensive than Carlisle & many parts of west coast. Penrith could be a good compromise BUT you won’t get in year places at QEGS of course - which means you’ll be looking at Ullswater College.

I wouldn’t want to live in/around Barrow. I do however like the idea of Ulverston to live - but, I don’t like the school. While local people often rave about UVHS (Ulverston) & Dowdales (Dalton), they really aren’t that great… they just compare favourably to Barrow school results.

Thank you your replys. It is such a hard trying to tie everything together, finding somewhere to rent in an area with a good school that is also i nice safe place to live and affordable. We could be based North Lancashire too, Bolten le Sands, Silverdale, Hest Bank, but again finding rent and which school you would attend from those places seems difficult to work out.

Bolton Le Sands and Hest Bank puts you in the catchment area for the Grammar schools and Ripley St Thomas if you are church goers which is an Outstanding school.

We live in Eden Valley. Kids went to school in Penrith - both Ullswater Community College (UCC) and QEGs. Both great schools - it is lovely to live somewhere you know your kids are going to get a great education. With two good Heads, teaching and support staff. Everyone assumes QEGs is better as the grammar school of course. My experience is UCC is an unappreciated gem. Both school good. For me, taking 11 GCSE (at Qegs) is too many for most of the kids and totally unnecessary, as it gains them no advantage for further education over the 8 or 9 GCSEs they take at UCC. Clever kids in the middle and bottom sets at Qegs often don’t do as well in exams as similarly academic kids in UCC who just missed out on getting into grammar school (who’ll be in the top sets at UCC as less academic school overall) - feels like they don’t realise how academic they actually are in a school that has a lot of super academic kids and get a bit demoralised for the exams. UCC is also way better at dealing with bullying.

Teenagers might find the lack of things to do for their age group a bit frustrating in Cumbria if they’ve grown up with more to do on their doorstep. That gets easier once they can drive. Many parents buy a third car for their kids to share to get around in independently.

Each town and village in Cumbria had a very different atmosphere and vibe. We rented until we settled on the right village for us. We initially rented in the village that we had honeymooned in and stayed in for holidays for years - still the most beautiful with the best walks - but we hated living there.

We moved here over 20 years ago now and wouldn’t live anywhere else.

I have read a lot of good comments about the Eden Valley as being a friendly place to live. You just want the best for your kids don't you, relocating hundreds of miles like we are is a huge move and you really want to get it right.

I followed my ex-husband around the world relocating for his work and honestly I look back and I wish I’d let him go and do the job for a couple of years rather than Move us all.
It is an enormous thing to do to teenagers in my experience mine Are grown-up and adult adults now but they don’t thank you for it.
Is there really no way that he can wait a few years?
Or go without you

The Eden valley is a real hidden gem. Lovely villages full of lovely people. All the teens here are in the same situation so it’s typical for them. Parents resign themselves to spend half their life as a taxi service for a few years. Overall it’s about 50:50 people who’ve moved here and people who will tell you their family have moved far away (when they’ve moved into Carlisle). Pick village carefully though as all have own character. Rented properties are hard to find but if can I would do it initially even if you had to Airbnb it for a little while. Then spend time in the village. Walk around during the day, drive through all times of day and pop into shop, pub etc. Like pp, we love Keswick and visit most weeks for parkrun etc and spend the day there but I wouldn’t live there. Too touristy, and a busy half a hour from the M6. Ambleside is also lovely but again to visit and come away from!

Very exciting! Good luck with your move.

It’s also much cheaper to live in Eden Valley. There is tourism but much less and often coast to coast cyclists.

Where will or could work be based?

Cumbria is a very large county and transport can be tricky. If your husband needs to travel around the county it would be good for him to live somewhere on/near a big road. Carlisle, Penrith, Cocker mouth, Keswick are all nice and ok for travelling to other parts of the county. I mostly know the schools in the north of the county.

I really like some of the villages near Wigton, which is on the A595 so is ok for travelling to the rest of the county. The Nelson Thomlinson school in Wigton is a good secondary school with good exam results.

Keswick school is nice but I think it's over subscribed so you might struggle to get an in year place. That might depend how old the kids are though.

My DD is at Trinity in Carlisle, which is ok but not as good as it was when my older dd was there.

QEGS is a very popular selective school, up in Penrith. There are some beautiful areas around there, especially between Penrith and Appleby.

Carlisle is very good for mainstream shops, trains, and generally just getting about. Trinity used to have a very good reputation, and was generally seen more favourably than the RR Academies, but I'm not sure what it's like now (I moved away years ago). If you're thinking ahead towards university, the university in Carlisle relies on a lot of the resources from another campus in Lancaster.

Some people say that some of the west coast is unfriendly to outsiders. I can only vouch for one town that I found unfriendly.

John Ruskin in Coniston and Cartmel Priory have excellent reputations.

Cumbria is huge and not well connected because of all the pesky mountains and lakes in the way.

Where will your husband mainly be based? Roughly what sector is he working in? Do you work and need employment?

Kendal and Penrith are the obvious ones for me for good transport links elsewhere and good schools.

There are always accidents on the A590 between Barrow and Kendal/M6 and always accidents on the A66 from Scotch corner to Penrith/M6 and West Cumbria to Penrith/M6, horrible dangerous roads

Penrith is impassible on Mondays and Fridays traffic wise in summer due to Center Parcs as is the Bowness/Windermere/Keswick areas up the A590

What matters to you for a good life?

Moving to somewhere unfriendly I think is my biggest fear, and for my daughter making new friends.

Thank you PenrithMountains your comments have really helpful and given us somewhere else to seriously consider.

I can only speak about my own experience of course @HappySmithy but we moved to the West side of the county 25 years ago and have never experienced any unfriendliness. We moved to a from a big city and lots of people told us we'd regret it, would never fit in, everyone with less than 5 generations in the area gets treated as an outsider etc. None of that proved to be true.
In my experience 2nd home owners tend not to be popular for obvious reasons, and I have seen a few retired couples have issues, either because they have made no effort to make friends and are seen as "snooty" or they've joined everything and tried to change things to suit themselves as soon as they arrive and are perceived as bossy incomers. But regular, friendly people who become a normal part of the community don't seem to have problems. My social circle consists of a mix of people ranging from those who can trace their roots here back centuries to those who have recently moved from other countries. With your DC being in secondary school you won't meet people at the school gate like we did of course but if you take them along to their hobbies you'll get to meet other parents, plus of course if you work you'll meet people through that. Go along to a few local events, join a sport or activity or two and chances are you'll find friends as easily as you would anywhere else.
Places aren't really friendly or unfriendly, people are, and you get a mix in Cumbria just like you do everywhere.

Thank you AgeingDoc 😊

Look at QUEGGS in Penrith and the Grammar in Lancaster.