relocation conundrum

[anweshana]

Hi,
I am a newbie here, looking for some help in relocation.

We live in Havering and have a 3 year old boy and a 10 months girl. By the end of 2015 I have to make an application for my sons primary school.
The primary school near to my house is not good both in terms of Ofsted and KS2 results. There are some outstanding schools nearby, I can relocate there to secure a place in them.
But my concern is there are no proper secondaries nearby and we are not in catchment of any grammar schools. As I am forced to move now, I am hoping that I could go somewhere where that will put my DCs into a better position in terms of their secondary choices, and hopefully it should help both the children to be in the same house/school/area for a considerable length of time.

My budget is 550, have no particular concerns about location, as long as commutable to Canary Wharf.

with all your wisdom, where do you think I should look?

Thanks

[Kingfisher]

I'll start off then.

What about the borough of Harrow? There are some fine schools and many go to QE Boys and Henrietta Barnet from there. There are good local schools and if you suddenly get rich, there is a good choice of independent schools as well. The line is well-served by the Met line with links to the Jubilee Line (for Canary Wharf) at Finchley Road and Baker Street. I have several friends who live in Stanmore and travel down to Canary Wharf. It's a 40 minute journey on the same line if you settle on Stanmore or Canon's Park. You'd get a decent house for your money.

[anweshana]

Thanks Kingfisher, I thought Stanmore has no Grammar Schools.

[tiffinboys]

Sutton with 5 grammars would be excellent choice. 3 with over 50% places for children in local catchment area. Many good primaries and private schools in nearby areas.

[loobylou]

Barnet is also a good option. You can apply to DAO and Latymer; obviously QE boys and HBS are also very close and easy to get to. The primary schools are mostly good and some outstanding. There are some good comprehensives (East Barnet School, Ashmole School, The Wren Academy, Compton are all good at the moment; a lot of people also like QE girls) but their catchments tend to be fairly small. Lots of people also attend independent schools from Barnet. I know a lot of people do move to Barnet for the schools (but that might be true of lots of other areas as well!)

[anweshana]

Thank you very much tiffinboys and loobylou.

I did some searching and I have this my shortlist

-> Barnet - Excellent selective schools, some good primaries. but a bit pricey, still in Zone4/5. Good comprehensives as back up (altough not very good).
-> Sutton - Again excellent selectives and some outstanding primaries. difficult to pin down an area. but couldnt find a fallback secondary option. Although with in london zones, very limited connectivity (compared to North London)
-> Watford - Great selectives and comprehensives, outstanding primaries, cross sibling preference, difficult to find a house in the primary catchment with in my budget
-> Amersham/Chalfont - Excellent selectives, Outstanding primaries, excellent location. but there are no good secondary back up options. Longer journey and hard to find a house.
-> Potters bar - Outstanding primary and secondary (DAO) but no secondary options. with in budget but difficult journey.

Although Barnet looks like a winner, I think the competition will be tougher there because of the reason that they are more sought-after schools and just the size of the population living there.

Please could you let me know if my understanding is correct? any comments are most welcome.

[Guest55]

Amersham/Chalfont - the non GS options are both very good - Amersham School does well and Chalfont Community College is also highly rated ...

[scary mum]

Some of the Upper Schools around Chalfont/Amersham would be an excellent back up option! I'm thinking of Chalfonts Community College, but that is one that I know about, others on the forum could comment on them.

ETA: great minds...

[marigold]

What about Chelmsford ?

According to TFL the jouney from Chelmsford to Canary Wharf via Stratford is 42 mins. Two fantastic grammars and many also travel to the grammars in Colchester and Southend.
Also some very good primaries and comprehensives and £550,00 would get you something very nice.

[KB]

In Chelmsford would you need to commute to the station to start with though - adding significant journey time?