Moving: Bucks For Good Catchment & Transport To London?

[hermanmunster]

@Kittymum thanks. Marlow is nice and my husband likes it. I'm more familiar with SW Herts so I hesitate to go somewhere that far away and it requires a change at Maidenhead to get into London.

@Scarymum thanks. yes Hampshire is lovely but our search is limited to Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire. Maidenhead has a very limited area in GS catchment.

Thanks for your comments everyone; particularly those expressing where they'll consider moving to and why.

To others, I understand that the school's standards or criteria could drop, Labour could cancel all forms of selection, who knows Putin might ....who knows?

yes a huge amount can change - over the years there are lots of areas that stopped selective education and there may be more in time,

Academic success of a comprehensive tends to reflect the affluence of the catchment - have a look at the results from Harrogate High School and Harrogate Grammar School - despite the names they are both non-selectives in the same town

Putin's kids when to Private schools, so I don't think he will have any influence

[Louey]

I agree with all the comments made above – children have a habit of throwing curveballs and best laid plans may not work out for lots of reasons. We moved to SW Herts from West London in 2017, mainly because we needed to find a secondary school for my son with special needs. But his twin brother was also very academic so we were looking for two different schools for very different children. We looked all over Herts and Bucks and there are pros and cons of each area. We ended up in Herts but just over the border from Bucks. My son got into CGS (as has his younger brother). But, there is no guarantee in future that children in our town will get into CGS because admission is based on distance from the school and it is very low down the priority list. In 10 years time, it is entirely likely that the school will be filled with children from Bucks who have priority as they are in catchment. Herts isn’t. The issue with Bucks is what do you do if your child is not academic and/or does not qualify for grammar school. Some of the upper schools are not great and your only alternative would be private school.

If I were you, as you don’t know what abilities (or disabilities) your children might have, I would aim for an area you like living in which has good schools regardless. Have you looked at Chorleywood/Rickmansworth? There are secondary schools there which admit a certain number of children with academic and music ability (e.g. St Clement Danes) although most of the places are down to catchment. They are very good schools. The area is nice and has good links to London. Chorleywood has good primary schools (I know less about Rickmansworth). Houses are not cheap though!

Lots of people also rave about St Albans and Harpenden, both of which have good train links as well.