Work – Are you
commutable? Luckily, I work from home so my office can be (and often
is) on the beach, in the park, in the pub (although granted, it's not
the most productive environment - hic). But for those of you who have
proper jobs, you might be surprised at the difference in salary if
you want to fully relocate to the coast. One way to get over this is
to do the daily commute into the big smoke. Thousands do it everyday
and because of this the train services are getting better and better
with many making the schlep in under an hour. Of course, you have to
think of the added price of a season ticket too. But despite all
this, coming home on a Friday evening knowing you can kick back on a
sunny beach for two days is well worth the daily slog.
You might want to
consider your proximity to Brighton station if you plan to do the
daily commute, although unlike London, the majority of residential
areas of Brighton & Hove proper (as in not your
Patcham/Portslade/Hangleton etc. outskirts) are within a 20 minute
walk. Either that or get a bike.
Primary schools
We have moved to the
Elm Grove area. A brisk 20 minute walk into to town and to the beach.
There's Queen's Park nearby and a whole host of good primary schools
available.
St Luke's Primary
School – With its no school uniform (unless you count Boden) policy
and an outstanding OFSTED.
Elm Grove Primary
School - equally good
Queen's Park School - again, very good
St Martin's C of E
Primary School - above average
Secondary schools
One of the main reasons
we moved to Brighton was because we have kids. While I love living in
London, I wasn't quite so happy to have my ten year old son roaming
the streets in search of entertainment. Luckily for us, I had a man
on the ground (and an ex-school teacher at that) to check out the
schools down here. With a strict catchment area in mind, we were able
to narrow down the best roads to buy in. Brighton has a lottery
system for secondary schools, however, this does still fall within
the catchment areas. For instance: we live in the catchment for
Dorothy Stringer and Varndean schools, both are very good and the
lottery will mean we will 'probably' (I say that as I don't want to
tempt fate) will get one of these. I'll touch on these again later as
we go through the application process and eternal nail-biting that
comes with the territory.
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