Essex Mums

Hi All

My family and I are planning on moving to Chelmsford in the next 3-6 months and I don't know the area at all.

We have to apply for our son's Infant/Primary school at the end of the year and I just wondered if anyone had an opinion of which schools were good as this will define where we decide to live (and price of house of course!!). I've looked at lots of the Ofsted reports, but you only get half a picture with those, I know we need to have a look around the schools also, but was hoping some local parents might be able to give me an idea.

I get the impression (obvioulsy could be wrong) that the Springfield and Chelmer Village area schools are good???

I'd really appreciate your thoughts.

Many Thanks

Fi
(Mum to Tom, almost 3 years!! how the time flies!!!)

Hi Fi

Sorry can't help, I did teach in Chelmsford whilst doing my degree but that was yonks ago and everything has probably changed LOL! I just didn't want to read and run!

Welcome to the site and hope to see you on here lots more!

Jenny

P.S Good luck with your move!

Hi Fi,
How strange - your message could have been written by me, just a few months ago! I have a 3 year old little boy and we decided to move to Chelmsford because it was easier for my work and also the schools were better. We decided to rent to begin with and gave ourselves a deadline of May 2010 to move so that we could get settled in before applying for schools.
I looked extensively for months at Springfield and Chelmer Village as the schools are supposed to be great. The only problem I had was that it is VERY difficult to get property (for sale or rent) that is in the so-called "priority admissions area" for the best schools. For example, you would think that a house was about 1/2 a mile from The Tyrrells School which is a fab school, would be a dead cert but then would find that actually you were in the catchment for Springfield (not so good) or Trinity (again not known to be that great). Having spoken to parents since, I have found out that the chances of living on exactly the correct side of the correct road are virtually impossible!

Therefore, we decided against Springfield even though we had a place booked for our little boy at the Seymour House pre-school - additionally as we thought that we would prefer to move somewhere that had a big garden and a bit more character than some of the new builds we were seeing. The idea being that if we were going to move away from the congestion of East London, we'd prefer to have some wide open spaces - so we went to completely the other extreme and moved to Bicknacre, near Danbury. The good thing is that most of the schools in the area are really good and I am hoping that the competition for spaces isn't as cut-throat as it is in Chelmsford (springfield etc) - but we'll have to wait and see!

Good luck with the move and with finding the ideal place to live - its not easy, I know!!

Parvin x