LHT

Hello All.

Quick note to say how helpful this forum has been over last few weeks as we make our decision to move. I'd be grateful for advice or ideas on below:

Location?
We are moving to Boston Area this July. Trying to decide on a suitable town to live in. Will be doing a quick trip in a couple of weeks to look at rental houses but would like to narrow down my search field! Will be working in Waltham and looking for a car commute of less than 30 mins, safe kid-friendly area, good public elementary and middle schools. Hoping to walk to school and have a pretty town centre... Based on my searches of the forum I have come up with Lexington, Concord and Sudbury. Would be very grateful for any personal experience of these towns. Or have I missed anywhere?

Youth Rugby
Can anyone recommend a youth rugby club (contact U10/U11) - have googled it and there are several around - hoping for a recommendation.

Any tips on getting kids integrated into the community before school starts in Sept also very welcome!

Thanks, Lucy

Relobotomy

Hi Lucy,
Snap! We move there in July. We chose Concord for schools, town center (especially the Cheese Shop), the reasons you list. Very little rental property available when we were out there for the preview in April so we decided to buy. Lots of reasons why that's a terrible idea, but, we went for it in any case.
the experts will be along to help soon I'm sure, but just wanted to say that we're in the same boat!

Good luck!

Relobotomy

And forgot to say, we've signed our 11 year old up for a week of horse riding summer camp (half days) to hopefully meet some other local kids before she starts school.

robin1234

Lexington, Concord, Sudbury are all good choices if you want real suburban towns. If it was me I'd probably end up in Arlington, Belmont or Watertown, though. They are three very pleasant towns with all kinds of property (apartments, double deckers, single family homes for instance.). Arlington and Belmont have outstandingly good schools. Don't know about Watertown, they may be. They are places that have the best of both worlds - space, large lots if you want it, parks, access to countryside, but also good public transport and easy access to Cambridge and Boston.

The commute to Waltham from Arlington, Belmont, Watertown would be more like fifteen minutes I think, obviously depending on which parts of the respective towns ...

We lived in Belmont, renting a half of a double decker in the cheap part of town, early nineties when our kids were elementary to middle school age. Walk to school, public library, shops, park. Bus route at the end of the road. Couldn't fault it.

Bob

Might want to look down a bit. Boston has come up a couple times over the last couple of weeks.

In fact, Waltham as a place of work was exactly what came up and loads of suggestions were made.

All depends on budget. All the towns you've listed are lovely and easy enough commutes along Rt 2/117/20/30 and I-95

Acton is good too and Andover, possibly Bedford. Natick, Wellesley, Wayland, Weston and Lincoln are worth looking at.

Won't have much in way of walking to school though and you'd not want to in winter with little kids.

For rugby, there's a FB group for Boston Brits and a few talk about it, think there's a decent kids club in Needham, but it's played all over.

Kids groups, I know Sudbury, Acton and Natick have really good free groups for little kids. Libraries always have things going on for free and Natick Mall used to, don't know now.

Plenty of summer camps too, though they tend to be expensive.

Markoncarp

Hey Lucy.

I can probably help with the rugby side of things. Right now, in New England, there is no opportunity for kids to play full contact rugby until they get to High School. There are a couple of summer programs which coach Tag Rugby, but thats limited to a few Sundays in July. These will be OK, but if your child has been playing for any period of time, he'll probably look at this as pretty basic.

I coach the local High School and am in contact with many of the local coaches at club level. There is a desire to get rugby driven down to the lower age groups, but right now, the US has a problem getting its head around a full contact game which doesnt involve head protection, being played before High School.

That being said, I put both my kids (9 and 11 at the time) into the local American Football program (just "football" here) and they love it. The fact that they had played rugby made them instantly popular with the coaches because they werent afraid of contact.

Good luck with the move. You wont regret it, its the best thing we ever did.

Markoncarp

By the way. We live in Needham. I personally think its just about the most perfect town. Great schools, not too far from Boston and 20 or 30 minutes from Waltham.

I'd definitely consider it.

Also Sudbury will be a nightmare in the Summer. Great schools but the whole town packs up and moves down to The Cape once school finishes.

I'd also look at Wellesley. Lots of Brits there.

LHT

Thanks for your insight, really valuable. Needham now on the list. Can you tell me difference between Needham and Needham Heights? We will look for American Football instead of Rugby for the 10 yr old. He is very into contact so def past tag stage. Lucy

Markoncarp

Needham and Needham Heights are really just different parts of the same town. Needham Heights is the area closest to the I95. Needham elementary schools are split according to location. I believe that Needham Heights kids go to Hillside, which is nice elementary, we have friends who have kids there.

At 6th grade and right through to 12th grade, they will all go to the same school.

If he is interested in signing up for Football, and you eventually decide on Needham to , you'll need to register your son with Needham Junior Football and Cheer. You can Google them. If you have any problems, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

By the way, we met the majority of our American friends through the Football program. It was fantastic going to the games each weekend and speaking to the other mums and dads.

LHT

Thanks for the advice - especially the FB tip. Am going through recent posts to check out the towns. Have googled a few summer camps - seem to be around $300 per week, seems expensive - is that normal?

Markoncarp

$300 is under £200. For a week? Sounds about right. Wait until you see the price of a full residential summer camp. It can be over $1000

Bob

That would be cheap...like a couple hours a day if you're lucky.

A couple hours of ballet a day is a bit under $900 at our local place in town for toddler range

LHT

Hi, Sorry for delay in response. V impressed you are managing to purchase so quickly! Am motivated to do it quickly given rental costs in all the areas we looked at. Also seems very little to rent in Concord. Excited to be going over in a couple of weekends to look around. Will look to get kids in summer clubs to meet friends (having now got my head round they are going to be more than the £15 per day at our local primary!) Any advice on realtors gratefully received!

Relobotomy

My realtor was amazing and has hooked me up with multiple other brilliant local people for insurance, mortgage, an attorney, civil engineer etc. PM me if you want her details.

Bob

It's generally not recommended you buy in the first year or so, especially if you don't have greencards.

There are plenty of reasons why it's a bad idea that you can find in many threads though.