Your School-Related Questions
29 October 2024
YOUR school-related questions answered
She founded Fiona Penny Bespoke Home Finders 16 years ago and knows both the housing industry and the Kent/Sussex area of the country inside out. So if you’ve decided to make a house move in 2024 then who better to give advice than property guru, Fiona Penny. Notepads at the ready!
Q: I currently live in Surrey and am going through a divorce. We were only ever here for my (soon to be ex-) husband’s job. So I’m considering a move to Kent to be near family, but not too far for the kids to travel to their dad at weekends. Any recommendations?
A: Fiona says: Villages such as Cowden, Hever, Chiddingstone, Brasted and Westerham, to the west of Kent can all offer lovely rural living for you and your children whilst being close to the Kent/Surrey border.
If children are older and travelling independently then both Hever and Cowden are on the Uckfield branch of the Oxted train line.
Likewise if wanting to combine your move with good grammar schools, then the popular and pretty villages of Leigh and Penshurst are both on the Redhill train line. This train line travels between Surrey and Kent, ending up in Tonbridge, which has brilliant options for grammar, state and independent schools.
Q: Can you explain how grammar schools work in Kent and how to buy in the right areas to benefit from them? Will they be abolished and are there best areas?
Grammar schools are state-funded schools that were introduced by The Education Act of 1944, in an attempt to remove inequalities in post war secondary education. They aim to offer a higher level of academic study to those students who pass one of the 11 Plus exams – either the Kent Test or The Medway Test.
The different Grammar Schools all have slightly different criteria: some have a fixed catchment area, some have a catchment area that varies slightly year on year, some offer two-levels of entry – which consists of a specific catchment area to benefit local children and some extra places for students with a very high score that are out of catchment.
Although there has always been talk of Labour opposing private schools and Grammar Schools, which they see as creating a two-tier education system, now they are in government they have no plans to do so.
The best areas to consider moving to for good Grammar Schools in Kent are Tunbridge Wells, Tonbridge, Cranbrook, Maidstone, Ashford, Dover and Canterbury and you would want to look at these towns or the villages that surround them, within their respective catchment areas.
Q: What will be the likely effect on local property markets once VAT is added to private school fees?
Whilst some parents will be able to cope with the increased cost of VAT there will inevitably be many who cannot. The new policy is likely therefore to increase the demand for State schools generally and Grammar Schools in counties like Kent that still have them.
Those schools that tend to show the best exam results in the state sector – which will of course include Grammars – will be seen as an attractive alternative to private education and therefore most likely become even more over-subscribed.
This will most likely result in increased demand for good family homes in Grammar School catchment areas. This increased competition will most likely see an increase in house prices within these areas.