Nice house popped up for sale but a bit of a question mark, for me anyway, is it is 2 doors away from a village primary school and the garden backs onto said fields.

I looked up the school activities and they run kids clubs 0800-1800, so I expect lots of car movements at start and finish, and packed local roads on sports days etc.

What about the noise, kids playing is happy noise. I walk past another primary school in the morning and the road is packed with cars dropping, collecting kids. So lots of vehicle movements twice a day.

So anyone live near a school and care to share their experience? This one has off street parking and a big garden, the view of playing fields in q nice.

No doubt 3 pages of frozen sausages, unimog, nationwide tracks so I ill get those out the way first. Cheers all

So anyone live near a school and care to share their experience?

Iblive right be a primary school but I’m a teacher so never around when its busy, moans about inconsiderate parking ate lost on me!!

The parking will annoy you, afternoons will see people parked up 45-30 mins before the bell

But schools are closed 13 weeks of the year

I wouldn’t let it put me off a house

I had a friend who lived opposite the school we went to. When we left school and went to college, so were sometimes at his house during the day, we discovered that someone would park on his drive from about 2:30 every afternoon and wait, engine running, for their kids to come out of the school.

There were houses backing onto my primary school field.

If the ball went into one particular garden, it would be popped with a knife and lobbed back shortly after.

Don’t buy it if you hate children and plan to have a quiet retirement there.

I’d have no problem with a house who’s garden backed onto a school playing field. I wouldn’t entertain one that is going to be affected by school run mummies and mass car abandonment twice a day.
Although watching them park/bounce off each other can be a good spectator sport 😀

Live 100m from a primary school which is too far to be bothered by idiot drivers. 100m is too far from them to walk they tend to just abandon their cars in the road or park on the zigzags

Ok just checked it has gates.

People sitting in cars with engines running annoys me, I started asking people to turn the engine off, mmm.

Ta for suggestions so far.

We live next to a high school, not backing onto playing fields but next to the tarmac playground. Obviously it’s been quiet the last few months, but in general it’s not been intrusive. The roads do get busier at drop off and pick up time, but we only notice if we are leaving the house at the same time, which really isn’t that often as I normally leave before & get back after when in the office, MrsTH works from home most of the time.

Road access to the house is via the next side street to the school gates so you’d think itd be rammed with parents, but it isn’t really. Maybe because its highschool, and a higher portion of kids walk/get the bus etc

Unimog

You know it makes sense

I live a couple of hundred metres down the road from a primary school. Providing the land is unlikely to be sold for development, I’d probably view it as a bonus – if Ofsted excellent it makes selling it easier later on too.

We back on to the school playground and the front of our house is near the school entrance.
They way people park at drop off makes me angry at their pure selfishness and the sheer arrogance that their child is more important than all the others they’re forcing into the road…grrr, but it doesn’t personally impact me as our car is on the drive.
If working in the office and going by car I’m gone before or after drop off times and back after it, so it’s not a problem.

Its quiet after 6pm, no noise at weekends, none during holidays etc, but not ideal if you work from home and do a lot of meetings – they are noisy devils at break and lunch times!

Would only put me off buying a house if it didn’t have it’s own parking.

We live on a cul de sac with a primary 3 doors down, with their car park at the bottom of our garden and a secondary school directly across the road.

As mentioned above its bedlam at each end of the day and when theres an event (parents evening etc), parents are the most inconsiderate parkers, they’ve all lost the ability to walk and insist on picking little johnny up from as close to the gates as possible!

They will block your drive, they kick off when asked to move.

But outside of these times and in school holidays its lovely and quiet. I dont regret buying our house.

If like me (under normal circumstances) out at work before the chaos and back after it doesnt affect me, 99% of the time its not an issue.

Could the playing fields use a pump track ?

Ask the school what community facilites they provide. They may have 5-a-side on the fields on sunday mornings for instance, or groups using classrooms or the hall in the evening.

And don’t underestimate the morning school run. Our village school operates a voluntary one-way system as the roads only allow 1 lane parking, 1 lane moving and no-one will leave parking spaces. Being voluntary, a few insist on driving the wrong way, so everything grinds to a halt. Then the bus or waitrose van comes the wrong way too, queue gridlock for half a mile either way.

They had to start shutting the gates as parents who couldn’t walk their kids up the drive were just driving up. One teacher got run over, broken hip. Staff manning the gates would get abused by parents. My wife worked in the office there and would spend every morning dealing with parking issues rather than school admin. The parental abuse drove her to quit in the end.

I’d have no problem living by a school if it was kids only, the parents are a frickin nightmare!

The house would have to be awesome and tick every other requirement box before I bought one next to a primary school.

Ok cheers all, if I got bored I could be a lolly pop man.

Live overlooking one primary school (200m or so) and about 400m from another one (not quite sure why you need so many in close proximity but that’s a different question).

I’m very rarely at home when the problem parking might occur so that’s not an issue as far as I’m concerned. And as others have pointed out, those sort of drivers tend not to want to be more than 10m from the gates.

With more working from home now I do hear the school play times but again not an unpleasant background noise. Better than the sound of HGV’s rumbling past.

Finally as above, good schools equals good resale potential. All my local ones get very high ratings so if I ever need to sell then that will definitely help.

I’d say go for it.

Go and stand at the gates at break time, it will give an idea of the kind of noise several hundred screaming kids can make, it may surprise you.

Don’t worry, school will soon shut and field sold off to build a thousand new homes under new planning laws.

(but the field would not put me off the right house)

Why don’t you ask the seller for their experiences?

I live near a secondary school, far enough away that I’m unaffected by school run traffic but close enough that I get the literal school run as hordes of feral kids come charging past. Biggest problem for me is my front garden is perpetually full of their detritus – crisp packets, pop cans etc. I cleared it out at the start of the year – bear in mind I live in a terrace not half an acre – and filled seven black bin bags. I did it again a couple of months later and filled another three. Bunch of savages in this town.

Concur with above. I lived directly opposite a primary for 8 years. Entitled incompetent arseholes is probably the best way of describing their driving and parking. There was a road narrowing with bollards next to our driveway and every year without fail a parent would run over it knocking down the bollards claiming they didn’t see it. The same parent would have been standing on the same narrowing ready to cross to the school gate moments before. Bloody frightening. The lady who parked across our drive on the zig zags then shepherded her son across the road from between her car and the next parked car on the zig zags directly into the path of another parent’s car who ran him over then completely lost her shit with everyone inc the headteacher for the accident. It would be funny if it was not so serious.

So the negatives are a raging war outside your house twice a day for 30 mins a time and parents evening and plays etc. Potential lack of access/exit from your own drive during those times. V noisy during breaks and lunch.

On the positive – house price and ease of sale if the school is a goodun and I’d rather overlook a field than be overlooked by another house.

I moved next to a school 3 or 4 months ago and have not found traffic to be a problem.

Serious answer is there will probably be more traffic than you can imagine at drop / collect times more so with primary than secondary, if you can I’d observe it at a busy time to see how much it bothers you.

Ok cheers, funnily enough the house changed hands quickly about 10 years ago at a 20% loss, then current owner 8 years. Clearly someone did not like the noise.

When I walk past the local primary, I see my mate dropping off his kids by car. I tell him, omg u live 250m away what are you doing? So expect more conversations like this…

Iblive right be a primary school but I’m a teacher so never around when its busy, moans about inconsiderate parking ate lost on me!!

I hope you are not an English teacher.

Go and stand at the gates at break time

Hold a bag of sweets and a puppy so you don’t look suspicious.

I’m a bit of a softie when it comes to kids, I’d enjoy living near the sound of kids playing.

“school run mummies and mass car abandonment twice a day.” (not to pick on who wrote that).

I’ve been doing the school run for nearly 10 years now between 2 kids, and 2 different schools. In all those years I can’t remember anyone parking over someones drive, although this seems to be the cry from the odd person who decided to move near to a school and then got upset because they lived near a school.

What they often mean is that someone has parked on the bit of the public road outside their house, and even though they had no intention of leaving, their exit from their drive would be made very slightly more of a chore because the bit of the road outside their house wasn’t clear. One thing that does annoy me at my Daughters school now is people who park on double yellows “Bit I’m only going to be five minutes!!” but that happens everywhere, they do ticket them on mass sometimes.

OP is going into with their eyes open, IME you will find a large increase in traffic and parking from about 08:30 to 09:30, and from 15:00 to 16:00 lots of people like a good long chat before and after dropping their kids off, but outside of those times it’ll be like it never happened.

Personally I would not;

Parents dropping off/collecting kids/blocking driveways/generally being inconsiderate/selfish/dangerous
Kids littering gardens if they walk past
Noise
Balls going into garden, kids climbing in to get balls

People people can be annoying, things that makes them congregate are rarely pleasant to be around.

they do ticket them on mass sometimes.

That should shame them into walking a bit further.

Ok just checked it has gates.

Would you get annoyed if somebody parked across them? (If so, think again.)

Loving this forum…

So I just emailed the agent to ask for the owners experiences, thanks good idea.

It’s a lovely house, well presented, big garden backing onto playing fields, off street parking, gates. Priced at a premium tho.

If no school I would make an offer, I actually like the noise of kids playing. My mother lives 300m from a primary school and I can hear it there.

Sports days, Christmas carol service though every road is blocked for miles around. Cars are on blind corners, siblings in pyjamas in the street, and its a nice village.

I keep you all informed.

Honestly, I wouldn’t. The noise is one thing but the parents, roads and parking is another.

I walk my kids to school a few days a week and it never fails to amaze me how entitled some of the parents are. Parking across driveways, blocking pavements, some even block the entire road but it’s OK because it is raining and she will only be 5 minutes…

I’d expect;

Parking over the school gates.
Parking in adjacent houses’ driveways. Maybe they have permission. Maybe.
Parking right by the school leaving the diesel running, as in right by the gates where everybody waits.

Almost everyone is reasonable about parking if they must drive. Almost.

Away from the manic half hours, it’ll probably be quiet. Aside from the kids outside playing that is.

I live directly opposite a primary school (one of the reasons we bought the house). Most of the time it’s fine, even pickup/dropoff isn’t too bad.  Running engines and people hooning off as fast as they can after dropping jnr off can be an annoyance, but in the main it’s ok. Noise not an issue for us, kids playing is a nice sound and being able to see our kids playing with their mates is great.  We don’t have a drive to block (nor does anyone else on the street really) so no issues there.  I think it would depend on the school (ours is only a single class per year so quite small), if it was a big primary with a large catchment I would want to have a look at busy times before committing 🙂

I live right next to a middle school and a secondary school (Northumberland’s weird 3 tier school system) and the traffic is horrific at drop off and kick out time. The big issue for the residents in my area is that the roads are very narrow and when you get dopey mums in 4×4’s parking on both side of the roads there is little room to maneuver.

Ok cheers, I hate road noise so the idling while parked would drive me mad. Also I suspect seeing local kids being driven when they could walk likewise.

My friend works in a school and I m afraid she echoes the sentiments about the parents.

Cheers all, stw at it’s best

I live opposite a primary school:

I have a 9-5 so generally I don’t see the traffic / school run – although who knows how the ‘new normal’ will change that from Sept
It’s a terraced street so no-one’s drive gets blocked, and people can’t really park nearby because the residents already use most of the space
The sound of 5 year olds playing in the playground is astonishing. Sometimes I have to go and look out the window to make sure no-one’s being dismembered by leopards, because that’s what it sounds like. The playing field might be different though!
The sense of entitlement described above doesn’t seem to come into play very much! Maybe it’s more apparent in certain types of area?
When I was a teenager we used to go and smoke fags / play football / ride bikes around the local primary school in the evenings. I’d be more concerned about that!

So I just emailed the agent to ask for the owners experiences, thanks good idea.

Just a thought on this:

I could be wrong but my understanding is that they’re not obliged to answer you but they cannot lie. So if they tell you it’s all unicorns and rainbows and it turns out to be hell on earth, you have comeback on it. Though, proving that…

Plus they’ll have a vested interest in downplaying any issues as they want to sell. Try knocking on the neighbours’ doors instead? “Hi, I’m looking at buying next door and thought I’d introduce myself… oh, and by the way… ?”

“they do ticket them on mass sometimes.”

That should shame them into walking a bit further.

This needs more recognition. Well played.

I live about 50m or so from a primary school. Twice a day (when not in holiday / lockdown!) the road gets busy. We have a drive with a dropped curb that goes onto the main road – never really been blocked in (that i’ve been aware of!) in the past 8 years. Generally the times are not too bad – 8:45 (left for work) and 3:15 (at work), so i’m not normally (lockdown permitting) aware of it. We don’t back onto the playing field, but they’re not far way, you can hear kids at playtime, but it’s hardly an offensive noise. I wouldn’t let it put me off a house I liked if it has off street parking.