Can anybody advise please? Also how is the school? Thank you.

What do you class as a good or bad area? And which school do you mean? There are at least three in the area.

Is it a safe area for a family with small kids? Is it very busy and over built? Or nice and quiet? Am I right to say that the school will be picked for us after we rent a house - so we do not know yet which of the 3 we children will be sent to?
Any information about the area from somebody who lives there will be useful.

Most small cities around Zurich have both "good" and "bad" streets - nice or ugly, safe or not so safe, quiet or noisy. You sure will be able to find a comfortable one in Adliswil, too. Check what houses are available for rent there, homegate.ch is a good place to start. There you can see location on the map, zoom the satellite images - this already may give you an impression of what's around. I, personally, prefer to live closer to the lake, particularly, on the other side of it (Horgen-Meilen-Uetikon), but good houses there are more expensive than in Adliswil.

Thank you for your reply. We are only new - relocating with 3 children. I honestly dont know where to start. Also looking at the Uelikon. Is it a nice area to live in? Is there a lot of kids? I mean schools, a pool and activities? Thank you for help. Honestly every single word is SO important to me at the moment.

So basically you are looking for a quiet suburb somewhere within reach of Zurich, right?

I don't know of any "bad" areas, i.e. dangerous from the point of view of high crime or gangs of teenagers. That doesn't really exist to any meaningful level.

The schools are pretty much to the same standard all over the Canton of Zurich, give or take. You might get anecdotal tales of people who don't see eye to eye with a teacher or the school is on a main road or similar.

As for pools, there are usually public swimming pools within a few minutes drive of most places and most villages lakeside have a bathing area with changing rooms, kids areas, etc.

For activities, it just depends on how old your children are. For young kids there are usually playgrounds and community centres with other kids, play groups, clubs for older kids, music teachers.

With so little information from you, it is difficult for anyone to tailor information in a relevant way for you, apart from very general opinions.

Relax, take a deep breath. Things will work out. You will make some mistakes, avoid others, and blind chance will also play a role.

Why don't you give us an idea of where you currently live, and what you regard as "safe" and "good", this will help us get a line on what you are looking for.

Google maps will show you schools, pools, and such near to any specific location that you find on homegate.ch, and google earth will give you an impression of what the neighborhood is like if you pay attention to the general state of repair, price of the cars, and the mix of houses and apartments on that street.

If you are moving for work, and the company will pay for temporary housing then the best plan might be to take that and get a feel for Switzerland before making a concrete decision about a house or apartment.

__________________
If everyone you know agrees with you consistently, they are either not listening, or not capable of critical thought.

Most folks on this forum once have been in this boat )) Just keep asking, as we may have frogotten what was important to know then.
I wish I knew about homegate before I came here. And now you even have Google maps with zoom and street view, wow!
Uelikon to me looks a bit too far from the city of Zurich. Which some people may like. But remember, in Switzerland, you can see the same amount of nature without commuting for an hour.

Adliswil is easy, commutable to ZH, plenty of facilities and has lots of green space and good schools. There's even a Rudolf Steiner within walking distance. But if you're looking for somewhere very expat friendly, you might find Thalwil, Horgen, Rüschlikon, Oberrieden an easier fit. Hope you have a great move!

We are relocating with work from Dublin with 2, 5 and almost 9 year old. I am looking for apartment/houses on homegate and other websites but the choice at the moment is an apartment close to Zurich or a house about 1 hour away. Like the idea of the house as we are used to living in a house in Ireland. Compromise ... compromise... As far as I understand its important to pick a good area now as it will be very hard to move in let's say 6 months due to the contract and without changing schools. Would prefer not to put kids through another stress of changing school and friends again.

Adliswil has got a brilliant pool complex with an indoor big pool, a shallower pool, a baby area and a diving pool, complete with a climbing wall.
Adjacent to all this is an outside pool area with a waterslide and lots of other stuff and a nice restaurant.

If you can manage a house, go for it. The regulations in apartments can be quite stressful, esp with 3 kids. Transport is brilliant, so Adliswil to Zürich is 15 mins.

Thank you very much for replies. I am probably overreacting but moving 3 kids from a very happy life to the unknown world in a different language ... Thats why I am so worried about them settling in. School, activities - in Ireland children have activities every day after school, I would like them to continue the same way in Switzerland.

I am reading the forum all day long and afraid to ask question to annoy "the locals". I know what it feels when the same questions are asked again and again. Thank you for your patience.

You are right about the regulations. I dont know how I will get used to it after having a complete freedom in Ireland and our kids are so loud and happy ! And they like jumping. House would be ideal of course.

Have you done a "reccy" here yet? You could organise a long weekend in the October half term and check the areas out good and proper. Arrange some viewings before you go and just spend the whole weekend looking around.

Budget? Planned length of stay? Recreational preferences?

The husband will have to pick an accommodation - it will be impossible for all 5 of us to fly just for viewing.

If he's relocating for work, work should pay for a reccy at least. Do they not have a relocation service to help you? Mind you they can be hit and miss (based on my rapid sample of 4).

This is how it is. I trust my husband completely

Well statistically they don't look all the same. It depends a lot not just on school but on who goes there. Here's one article with some stats and a map:
http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/zuerich/...story/15733906

(Note there's more variety than that map shows. E.g. Zurich has many school districts, some of which like Zurichberg are better regarded, some worse. And there are other quality indicators beside proportion of students who go to university.)

I think I've read some other newspaper a while ago which mentioned these two main factors on school's success:
1) foreigners proportion - If a lot of them go to your school, there's more language issues that hinder the teaching for everyone
2) how rich is the neighborhood. This is in turn often related to municipal tax rate and foreigner's proportion. Rich people can afford to give the best to their kids, do extra activities, spend more time with them and are better educated themselves. Their kids turns out or are pressured to be overachievers and this reflects on their fellow students too.