OMG - decided to move back to UK. Kent? Surrey? Schools???? Head hurting already, please help. Please please please. And breathe. Anyone?

[ErnestTheBavarian]

OK, Been out of UK for nearly 10 years. Decided to move back. Want to be there in time for ds to start secondary school, ie September 2010.

Lots of Q & compölications - any help or thoughts?

Area

thinking Kent or Surrey. Need to be max 40 mins commute to London (Waterloo). Need to be south or river as have family in Dorset, Wimbledon & NW Kent.

Want good secondary schools (& primary too).

Schools. Making my head hurt already.

How do you find out what's a good school? I can't make head nor tail of league tables. I mean a school having 50% A-C sounds pretty dismal to me, but is that not condiered good or OK? I take OFSTED reports with pinch of salt. How on earth do you find what are good schools, especially as we're not in country and can't visit.

WHich is better school wise, Kent or Surrey? Does Surrey also have grammar schools?

I heard Surrey state schools maybe not so good as so many in. schools?

To start in September 2010, we have to buy (& live in ?) house in desired area by October 2009, is that right?

If we aren't in place by then, we go on waiting list/get allocated to school we don't want, is that right? It's really hurting my head, because ideally I wanted to move just before start of school, so even with 1.5 years notice, this won't be possible will it?

Finally, ds1 is 1 year out of sinc, ie he is in year 3 when he should be in year 4. Would he be able to stay 'out of sync' or will he be forced to join officially correct cohort?

Shite, it's just too difficult.

Thinking in terms of comprehensives, scienceteacher, which areas of Surrey/Kent would you consider to have better schools?

Ds, born Nov03, would start in reception in September 2008 which would mean he would be year 1 in Sept 2009.

In that case I stand by my original statements of Epsom, Ewell or Cheam (although living here I may be a bit biased) but scienceteacher is right that you need to decide on a school and move within 1-3 miles of it.

Banstead is nice but not in the catchment for any decent schools although is easy to get to Sutton Grammar from but if your DS didn't get in the nearest secondary school is in special measures...

I don't envy you in the slightest, what a big decision.

Weybridge has an okay secondary and primary school, fast link to Waterloo.

how do you know what a school's catchemnt area is?

I'm in NW Surrey, and the best comp around is one of the Woking ones - I think Winston Churchill. The others are fairly grim.

The other issue is that most schools are 11-16, which I believe means that you lose a lot on the type of teachers you get.

Heathside in Weybridge gets talked up, but I think it is just a bog standard Surrey comp. It looks good compared to its neighbours. You have to live very close to the school to get in.

gotta go now. You've been BRILLIANT

compiling list - ewel, carshalton, surbiton weybridge on it so far.

hpow on earth will we be able to visit these and schools? and choose and do all nec from Germany sigh

speak to the school, they don't have catchment it's generally council care, special education needs, siblings and then distance to the school as the crow flies!

Heathside is the one in weybridge and Winston Churchill is the best in Woking but it's a trek from the station if you want to live near the station and the school and the head at WC is up himself apparantly.

At Heathside they do some selection on maths/IT & Music I think it is. They also fill from their feeder school St James before distance. We live quite far from it but dd was offered a place June time to start Sept. Many people in Weybridge can afford private.

Science teacher "Surrey schools are fairly dire, I'm afraid"

This simply isn't true - you need to move to another part of surrey!

There are many top performing primary schools in surrey (look at BBC league tables). There are also good comps in East Surrey plus the grammar schools in Sutton/Cheam area.

It all sounds very stressful Ernest.

I think if I were you and not tied to any particular area just yet I would contact as many schools as possible now and ask about the out of year thing. The whole not starting school till 7 makes a huge difference.

We are moving with back to UK in 3 years or so but thankfully have already identified school and area and the school is independent so when I told them that we would be keeping DS down as we move back they were fine! Obv not if he suddenly ends up top of the class but I am pretty sure that won't happen!

Hi to all in Ewell! We lived in Ewell before moving overseas - still have a house there in fact!

There are many many good schools in Surrey, just as there are crap ones.

Bit narked by your comment Science Teacher.

Around Woking both Winston Churchill and Woking High are very good. Other local schools in teh area not so good, but there is more to Surrey than the Woking area! Surrey has great schools, it really does!

Phew getting me worried.

I have had some promising news - I spoke to one school today and was told absolutely 100% not a problem for ds to stay 1 year out of sync due to his exceptional cirs, which would be absolutely fantastic. It means we don't have to push him up effectively 2 years, panic swat him for 11+, we would be then in UK with months to spare for October application deadline, we would be fine wrt rental contract on this house here, EVERYTHING would be easier, so if I can get the OK from other schools, then I'll feel a LOT better about the whole thing.

OK, back to Surrey. We seem to be leaning more and more towards SUrrey/ Sutton area.

So, anyone give me more details on Carshalton/Ewell/Surbton/Epsom. Are these places mega££££? Are they small and villagey or like Croydon? (Thinking centre of Croydon - been from station down street to shops a few times many moons ago before trams) so need to have some sort of reference in head. Are they nice or horrible, green, easy with little kids, friendly, annonymous etc etc.

Or am I mad to consider this area. Are the primary schools good - been so focussed on ds starting secondary, but have 2 other ds who need a primary school (potentially 3, if ds1 can defer)

Good news!

I really liked Ewell but have to say haven't lived there for 15 years! Some friends live in East Ewell and moved to Leatherhead 5/6 years ago. I liked the fact that I could walk into the village for the shops and walk into Epsom for more variety. Easy to get to Wimbledon/Kingston too.

If you look on Rightmove you will get an idea of prices. Have just looked for one of our type houses for an idea but none available at the moment. We have a 4 bed townhouse in a small development. Last time I looked they were going for around 460K - we rent ours out for around 1300 per month. A bit lower than we could get I think but we would rather have it occupied than try to get more and maybe not rent.

NE Surrey would include Oxted and surrounds, lots of nice villagey-feel places, plus a good secondary school. Admission now includes feeder primaries which would make things trickier for you though. Good rail links to Victoria, London Bridge and Charing Cross, but the line splits south of Oxted so further down you get half the number of trains.

so, Epsom good, Yes? School good? Crime rate? Green?

Ewell good, yes? Schools? Crime? Green?

Carshalton, anyone?

So, couple more grammar schools have said staying year below no problem, and 1 primary has said yes, but 1 primary said 'no', so have emailed Kent & Sutton LEA to see what they say.

Epsom is nice and green (well, there are obviously bits that aren't, but on the whole it is nice and leaf, with wide-ish streets, lots of trees, and good parks).

Eweel is similar (i've only moved to Epsom recently, so not so clued up on Ewell, but have driven through a couple of times)

i moved from kent, and, in my experience, they are completely inflexible abut being out of year in school.

my dd1 has SN, and they refused to let her be out of year (she is autistic, and is an August baby, so doubly affected). They would have let her be out of year in primary (in some schools) but were completely inflexible about secondary, meaning she would have had to skip 2 years to catch up on transfer. there was absolutely no room for negotiations, even though we had many people (doctors and educational psychologists) recommending this for dd1, as she is delayed developmentally and young in her year.

silverfrog - who's 'they'? kent or epsom?

I've just got a rather terse email from Kent CC telling me there's no way, which is rather disappointing after 3 schools telling me 'yes, absolutely no problem' this morning.

If surrey/sutton say 'yes' but kent say 'no', then we don't go to Kent. Simple.

The thing is, ds is already out of year (as well as being late August) and has effectively missed 3 years of primary education, so I feel it totally unfair to refuse to let him carry on with a situation he has always been in, and try to cope when being years behind his peers. Extra frustrating when some say yes and some say no, grrrr.

Can I ask roughly where in Kent you were? We were in NW Kent (Gravesend/Rochester). How does Epsom compare?

Might have to start thread on the out of year thing

Sorry, 'they' is Kent. Completely inflexible and infuriating.

We were in mid-Kent, near-ish Tunbridge Wells - in an absolutely fantastic area for schools, as long as you fit in with the existing system. dd1 was never going to fit in, and so we have moved, rather than sacrifice her education, which is what Kent were happy to do. (Kent LA procrastinated with Statementing to the point where dd1 missed her place in our local mainstream school. so she would have had to go straight into yr1 (as Kent won't do out of year) instead of Reception. This was done knowing her educational difficulties - Kent are borderline negligent, imo, and if there were not so much at stake (namely dd1's future potential/hopes of living independently etc) we would have been minded to stay and fight the case.))

Can totally empathise with your situation - we haved moved to Epsom purely due to a school place for dd1 (but it is a SN school, so I'm not much help on mainstream - will have to look for a mainstream place ina couple of years for dd2, but we have time for that). FWIW, if I were in your situation, I would not move to kent.

I had, some way back, posted that Kent's policy was to keep DC in peer group. I am a similar location to where silverfrog used to be.

Like Silverfrog, my DS is a late August birthday and has SN. Also, the delayed DS' statement so that he couldn't start school in Reception.

We are currently holding him back in an Independent school, where they believe a child should have the correct education for the individual not as dictated by someone who has never met him. Blardy KCC!

hmmm.

thanks for that input. So anyone know about Sutton/Surrey - they haven't replied to my email yet

I really don't believe Surrey LEA will let you have a child out of year either my friend successfully got her child to be out of year on 3rd appeal but only because she missed the first 4 years of formal education (adopted from abroad) the fact that she is bottom ability of MLD & August baby were not valid arguments in their eyes. Again the school didn't have a problem with it, it is LEA that will not permitt it.