Moving: Bucks For Good Catchment & Transport To London?

[BucksorHert?]

So we got married a couple of years ago and have been house hunting for almost a year.
We've decided we don't wish to move after this move as we've gotten married a little later in life.

We've decided on Buckinghamshire, (Maidenhead) Berkshire and SW Hertfordshire. We wish for selective or semi selective schools. I need your help to narrow down our search area. What area will you search if you were in our shoes? We're just starting our family so our DC have not arrived yet. Dame Alice Owens seems most popular even if semi-selective. Which are the better performing schools in Bucks? It's also Co-Ed so that narrows it down to just one school although it appears single sex schools achieve better.

I'm still trying to understand the catchment admission criteria and estimate the percentage based on catchment and whether they also most qualify by attaining a certain score. It seems Potter Bar is the place to house hunt but perhaps the catchment extends elsewhere? Thoughts please?

Dr Challoner's Boys and Girls also seems a good one albeit in Amersham which is a much slower train into London but I guess it will have to do if there's no other area for both a boys and girls selective Grammar. Aylesbury looks like it has a fair catchment but it's so far out and when we went viewing there we didn't like the area. Beaconsfield is nice but less house for the money, only one Grammar catchment which is single sex so still need a boys and it appears they over lap only over a small area. I might be mistaken.

I'm sorry if this isn't the regular type of post on here but we need to move this year and prefer to get it right as far as we can now and not 10yrs down the line even if Labour abolishes all selection. I hear of frustrations of friends moving house after having moved not so many years ago because they didn't know the entry and catchment requirements, DC with very high grades but out of catchment etc. However, this is Kent and Essex mostly. Many in Hertfordshire didn't even now about selective schools and some had to live poor to send their children to private school. Two people I know warn against non-selective cos in their experience they diminished their DC's motivation. In any case Non-selective isn't for us. I went to a highly selective school in my home country and my husband also got an offer at a 100% selective school in England but got full scholarship to a selective private school and moved there. That was Warwickshire. We'll know more if that was where we are looking.

Only in the past month has it dawned on me that this is very important in house selection and at the right time a friend sent me this forum. I'll be more grateful for your gentle but firm guidance. If you were starting afresh where would you move to for excellent schools?

Thank you in advance.

[mad?]

Welcome to the forum!
Gosh there is a lot to cover here and I start work shortly so I cannot address all of it. However, a few comments.
You ask where to go for excellent schools and then say you want selective. Which is it? The 2 are not the same.
I do think you need to bear in mind you have no idea what type of schools will best meet DCs' needs before they are born.
In your circumstances I would choose an area that I really wanted to live, with good connections, facilities that I wanted and a seemingly open and welcoming vibe. Then and only then would I check that there are good local schools - of all types - so that - on the off-chance that things remained the same for 10 years we would have a good chance to find a suitable option for DC.
I'm sure others will be along to help shortly

[scary mum]

Also in haste, and will return to this later but Maidenhead is not in a grammar school area (some parts will be in the outer catchment for some Bucks schools - possibly John Hampden, you would need to check, but generally children in Maidenhead do not attend grammar schools).

[streathammum]

If you do decide on Bucks, make sure you also look at the Upper schools in case your future children and not academic and don't qualify for a grammar.

Bearing this in mind, you might find it better to go somewhere that doesn't have a full grammar system so that your options are broader should your child not make it into a selective school.

[scary mum]

I'm back! I know more about Buckinghamshire & others will be able to comment on other areas.

We've decided on Buckinghamshire, (Maidenhead) Berkshire and SW Hertfordshire. We wish for selective or semi selective schools. I need your help to narrow down our search area. What area will you search if you were in our shoes? We're just starting our family so our DC have not arrived yet. Dame Alice Owens seems most popular even if semi-selective. Which are the better performing schools in Bucks? It's also Co-Ed so that narrows it down to just one school although it appears single sex schools achieve better.

All the grammar schools in Bucks are good schools, but they have very different characters & you would need to visit to see what would suit your child(ren) best, but of course you can't do that until you know what their character/academic ability/interests are.
I would really counsel against assuming your child will be bright & suited to grammar school and moving to an area because of the grammar school system, because often the non grammar schools (in Bucks they are called Upper Schools) are poor, so you would need to pick your area very carefully. Every year we have parents on here who have been sure their child would pass the 11 plus and are very upset to find that they haven't. You could also have one child who qualifies and another who doesn't. We moved to Bucks when our eldest was 1, with the vague idea that the schools here were good (we weren't very aware of schooling at this stage & like many, assumed our children would qualify). Spoiler alert: the eldest didn't qualify.
If I had my time again and was moving anyway I would pick an area with excellent comprehensive schools, where my children would get an excellent education and have very local friends. In spite of what people may call the schools, fully selective areas (Bucks & Kent) do not have comprehensive schools - the Upper schools are missing 25-30% of the children.
For Maidenhead, you would have to check on the Buckinghamshire Council website for any Bucks schools that you might be in catchment for, but it will be very few, if any.

In any case Non-selective isn't for us.

I'm sorry, but as mentioned above, you can't know this at this stage

If you were starting afresh where would you move to for excellent schools?

Probably Hampshire.
Please keep coming back & asking questions, but I would encourage you to find an area that suits you and look at schools later. To be perfectly honest a bright child will do well at pretty much any school.
PS I've just had a look at the March allocations for Bucks grammar schools in 2021. It looks as though John Hampden Grammar School (boys) offered some places in the Priority B area, which I think covers Maidenhead, and Wycombe High (girls) offered to the edge of Maidenhead. It would be a very risky strategy to assume that in 10 years time there would even be a Priority B area (it was only introduced in the last couple of years) or that children from the area would gain places. Admission criteria can change enormously in 10 year, particularly for those at the edges of catchments, or out of county.

[hermanmunster]

S Two people I know warn against non-selective cos in their experience they diminished their DC's motivation. In any case Non-selective isn't for us.

Lots in the original post but I would echo scary mum's comment about the above - you haven't got these children yet, children always give you a surprise - they may be good athletes, they may be good musicians, they may have specific learning difficulties that need much extra help at school, they may have sensory deficits and need more help in that field, they may simply (like 50% of the population) be below average.

Answer is really to move to somewhere you like and keep an open mind on what type of school is needed until at least the terrible twos are over and done

[solimum]

Although if you know it's going to be a boy I guess his name could go down for Eton before birth....

[Tinkers]

No one has a crystal ball so whilst considering future children at this stage is a good idea, you have no idea what life will throw at you in the mean time, as others have implied. You don’t know what schools are going to suit any children you may have, and you can’t guarantee that your children will qualify for a GS, however much you think they will and how ever much tutoring they have. Anyone can have a bad day.

In addition (from personal and local experience). Schools can go up and down in ratings. Sometimes a change in head can turn a middling or failing school completely around or a school with a very good reputation fall from grace. The whole ethos of the school may change.

We’ve had several local schools alter their catchments and/or admisisons criteria, including the GSs in Reading. Our catchment comprehensive school went through this process when my DD was in year 4 and if the changes proposed had gone ahead as planned, whilst still technically in catchment she wouldn’t have got a place. Our other local catchment secondary wasn't highly though of at the time and we had to rethink our options for her. At it is the other school has improved a lot. Since then another secondary school has opened locally as well.

A friend of ours moved to an area (quite rural) where the local school was very good just before her elder DD was born. In the year she was applying that school went into special measures, and there was no way she would have applied. Living out in the sticks limited their options, as whilst her DD might have got a place at other schools, there just wasn’t the transport options to make them viable. Both DDs have gone through private secondary schools as a result.

Best to keep a very open mind at this stage. Make sure you have several decent but varied options, and hope that some of them stay decent by the time your children are at that age.

[kittymum]

Part of Maidenhead is catchment for SWBGS - but check carefully and also check distance - you need to be looking at less then 3 miles. I imagine Maidenhead will also be catchment for WHS and JHGS (or at least some of it).

I’d move to Marlow - you’ve got SWBGS or the Marlow Hill schools if you want single sex plus GMS as a fantastic non grammar option (disclaimer my children are at / were at SWBGS).

Drive to Wycombe and get the fast train into Marylebone or go on the more scenic route from Marlow via Maidenhead.

[BucksorHert?]

@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?