OneSon

Sheffield has atrocious support for children with special educational needs. It also has a shockingly high number of children permanently excluded from school.

My friend's son goes to a very well regarded school in south-west Sheffield and many (perhaps most) of the parents are from down south. They all seem to speak highly of Sheffield but only engage with about 20% of it. They seem unaware of anything outside of the south-west bubble (Fulwood, Milhouses, Crosspool, Dore, etc).

Nice distraction from Brexit. Reminds of us our close allies the Americans from outside the EU and shows us what a strong country we are. Perfectly timed as well.

There are 36 cities in the UK with a population of 200,000 or greater. Unless you want to change the technical definition of the word 'city' to London, Sheffield, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester only then Sheffield is most certainly not one of the safest cities in the UK.

Absolute nonsense. It is one of the safest of the core cities. It is most certainly not one of the safest cities.

"safest city in England"

Even in that report, Sheffield has the 5th highest crime rate of all cities. For violent crime it was the 7th highest in 2016 but has seen a sharp increase in the last 2 years, particularly in relation to murder. There are 51 cities in England. I love Sheffield as much as the next guy but to say it's the safest city in England is clearly not true.

It may be the safest city if city means London, Newcastle, Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester & Sheffield. But when you compare number of crimes in Sheffield per capita to places like York, Coventry, Hull, Derby, Plymouth, Reading and Norwich then it is quite clearly not the safest city in England. In fact, over the past 2 years the number of violent crimes in Sheffield is very high when compared nationally. Unfortunately, it is starting to pattern with Birmingham and London.

Number of burglaries in the Dore and Totley area is so high at the moment that locals are proposing street patrols. Police have confirmed that two burglaries have been carried out with axes and one with a knife. The "Sheffield is the safest city in the country" hippy nonsense doesn't wash with most people unfortunately.

If they also put British flags up in their bedroom windows, mixed almost exclusively with other British descendants and generally refused to adopt any aspects of French life they would likely be criticised by the exact same lefties who you are arguing with here.

Why do you do that travelling? That sounds absolutely awful.

We used to live in Sheffield and our son was developing asthma. We left when he was 4 to live in a rural location and his cough has disappeared. The air is noticeably more clear out in the country. Sitting traffic is very bad for air pollution in cities like Sheffield, London, Manchester etc. I spent the first 30 years of my life in Sheffield and never really noticed it until we left.

I'm glad you can find humour in it! What has his skin colour got to do with it?

https://www.thestar.co.uk/news/man-57-reportedly-stabbed-by-teenager-on-sheffield-street-1-9494796 I can confirm this is true. And this was not "targeted", "drug-related" or "gang-related". This was an innocent man being stabbed in the bag and being left to bleed to death in the middle of Baslow Road.

If the kids want to go out in the cold, let them. If they'd rather stay in and keep warm, as I would, let them. It's 2018, not 1962.

When you let Asian gangs take over a town and exploit young girls this is the sort of thing that happens down the line.

Absolutely disgusting.

What have your experiences been in Sheffield? We're just at the start of this journey with our son who seems to have a severe speech difficulty. At the moment we're really struggling to get any help from the NHS other than a couple of group sessions. Any input appreciated!

Police: "I'd like to reassure you that we believe this to be an isolated, targeted incident." Oh that's ok then, as long as it was targeted then I have nothing to worry about. Until I'm the target of course.

If it's a full time job then I'd move, that commute could be hell. Move to York though, not Leeds. Then commute from York to leeds.

Sheffield is an interesting city with an incredibly large social divide that is, in my opinion, not good for the harmony of the city. It also suffers from not particularly good race relations. I have lived in many parts of the world and at times Sheffield reminds me of parts of America and South Africa. Dore, for example functions, in many ways, like a gated community would in America. There are some truly beautiful parts of Sheffield with tree lined streets and large houses. I would include Ranmoor, Fulwood, Nether Green and parts of Millhouses and Ringinglow in this. There are also many deprived areas that simply do not see the same level of investment from the council. The disparity between parks in the city is disgusting. If you are wealthy enough to live somewhere like Dore or Ringinglow then fine however you run the risk of being one of those people who does not truly engage with the city you live in. Instead utilising John Lewis and Waitrose and spending the rest of your time hiding away in your big house. The school situation in Sheffield is also a disgrace to the council. The disparity in funding between the schools in the south-west and the rest of the city is appalling. So too is the way the council draw the catchment areas in order to ensure the selectivity of schools like Silverdale is maintained. This is why there has been an enormous influx of families to the south west and the situation is now unsustainable.

If it is oversubscribed then that underlines just how bad the situation is in the south west of the city in terms of school places.

Very useful, thanks.

Interesting. So are the council hoping some parents will opt for Mercia instead of the listed schools in order to ease oversubscription? Until it develops some sort of proven track record I can't imagine many will put it as their first choice over the likes of Silverdale, High Storrs etc.

We're moving to Sheffield and we're studying the secondary school catchment areas and I'm struggling to understand what the situation is with the new Mercia School. It seems to be in the same catchment as various other schools?