The best places to raise a family in England
There’s only one reason that families pay more for a house in certain locations: outstanding schools. Alastair McCall, editor of Parent Power, offers some tips and picks out a few of the educational hotspots — and they come with access to green spaces, clubs and a strong community
It is the critical move not just on the property ladder, but also in life. Where is the best place to bring up a family?
Yes, you will want attractive bricks and mortar at affordable prices, as well as parks and swimming pools, playgrounds and skateparks, and a lively high street, but not that lively a nightlife — but above all you need outstanding schools.
The choice of school will shape your child’s future, so this is when you have to get your head around exam results and attainment levels rather than square footage and bi-fold doors. That move often involves personal sacrifice (my mother hated where we lived in Hertfordshire, but was adamant that seeing my brother and me in a good state comprehensive made it just about tolerable) and it almost always involves a financial penalty.
It is often said that you have to pay for a good education one way or another, either through independent school fees (which take catchment areas out of the equation) or through the inflated house prices or rents that are commanded for properties near good state schools.
Just as a good school may require you to sign a home-school agreement under which you agree to make sure homework gets done, you also have to do some homework of your own before you move and apply.
Timing is critical. And you need to be in situ when you make your application (usually October 31 in the year prior to admission for secondary school and January 15 in the year of admission for primary school) or provide evidence of the move having taken place or being in the offing before offer day (usually March 1 and April 16 respectively). This takes careful planning, not least if you are moving some distance within or between regions.
You need to make sure as far as is possible that the house you are buying or renting is within the catchment area of the school you are interested in. This is easier said than done. Catchment areas expand and contract from year to year. In London and some inner cities catchment areas can be measured in yards from the gates of the most sought-after schools, with places at an absolute premium once admissions for children in care, siblings and other common criteria have been satisfied. Look at the distribution of admissions for the most recent year, but also compare with previous years. Local authorities make the Published Admission Number (PAN) for each school available, together with the distance from the school of the last child admitted in the previous admissions cycle, where a school is oversubscribed and its catchment area comes into play.
Bear in mind that a large new housing estate one mile from the school gates can leave houses in older developments, which traditionally would have fallen comfortably within catchment areas, out in the cold. Take advice, especially if you are new to the area where you are looking to send your children to school. The price of the house you are looking at can often give a clue as to whether it is always in catchment, sometimes there, or only rarely. Beware the bargain — and not just because of what the survey might turn up!
The premium for houses close to the highest-performing schools can be in excess of 100 per cent above prices in the wider local authority area, which explains why some opt to live exactly where they want and put their money instead into independent school fees.
Every year Parent Power throws up towns and city districts that are educational hotspots — the places where parents are spoilt for choice with high-achieving schools at primary and/or secondary level, in state and/or private sectors. The latest edition of our schools’ guide used the opportunity provided by the absence of public examinations last summer to take a longer-term look at school success, identifying 26 Schools of the Decade whose success was no flash in the pan.
Clusters of high achievement were spread across the country — and not always in expected places. Take Newham, one of the poorest boroughs in east London, but garnering headlines for outstanding educational outcomes. Brampton Manor Academy, with more than 2,000 pupils on roll, saw 55 of them gain offers to study at Oxford and Cambridge from October this year — seven more than were gained at Eton.
Other Newham sixth form colleges feature high in the Parent Power rankings, notably the London Academy of Excellence Stratford and Newham Collegiate Sixth Form Centre, ranked third and fifth respectively in our sixth form rankings. At primary level, Newham fares even better, with 13 schools making the England top 500, more than any other London borough. More, too, than Kent (12) or Surrey (11) could manage.
Outside the capital, my five Parent Power education hotspots — all with buoyant house prices — would be Cheltenham, York, Cambridge, St Albans/Harpenden and Warwick/Stratford-upon-Avon. They all combine broad-based school excellence, leaving parents spoilt for choice. This selection is subjective, of course, and while built around a consistent presence in Parent Power, it could easily be replaced by five different towns or cities such as Durham, Bath, Altrincham, Tunbridge Wells or Sheffield.
Cheltenham and York are two personal favourites. In Pate’s Grammar School, Cheltenham has one of Gloucestershire’s surviving selective state grammar schools. Our State Secondary School of the Year in 2019, it is usually to be found close to the very top of our state school rankings. It faces strong competition, however, from the private sector, with Cheltenham Ladies’ College (our Southwest Independent Secondary School of the Decade) and Balcarras School, a comprehensive in the south of the town (our Southwest State Secondary School of the Decade). There are no fewer than six secondary schools in the town ranked in Parent Power.
It’s a similar situation in York, with six secondaries to be found in a densely packed area, three of them comprehensives — Fulford, our Comprehensive School of the Decade, Archbishop Holgate’s and All Saint’s RC — all within a stone’s throw of one another.
As with all successful house moves, planning is key. Visit the schools you are interested in and then peg the house hunting to the relevant catchment area. Parent Power — with its listings of 2,000 of the top-performing schools and functionality to allow you to find houses for rent or for sale near by — is a good place to start. The top schools are identifiable by town and local authority search functions across primary, secondary, state and independent sectors. What are you waiting for?
