Folks,

Does anyone live next door (~50m) to a large secondary school?

What can one expect from such environment? I have no children and I am a night owl, I can imagine that noise from early morning will be an issue to start with.

Thanks!

Noise and more noise I guess. And for some reason, secondary students complain about school non stop when they have to be there, but hang out there anyway in the evenings and weekends, drinking, sports or smoking (for some) with their friends. At least that’s what my students do!

You covered it all.

The bells ringing for start of school, change of lesson, etc. was the thing that really annoyed me..... especially one Christmas when the school caretaker went away on holiday and forgot the switch the ruddy system off!

If you have the time, spend the bulk of a few days just hanging around in the vicinity of the place (I assume) you intend to buy/rent near the school ... that will give you a good idea of what the sound will be like with the windows open.

If you can't spend a heap of time all at once, then go one day for an hour or so in the morning, another day for an hour so middle of the day, another day an hour or so in the afternoon ... and then a bit of time on a weekend as well.

We live about 50m away from a secondary school. We're not on the main street to the school, but it's still fairly well used. Kids come by between 7am and 7:30, and sometimes we can hear the bell. We've never had any real trouble - although sometimes on parents' evenings there are illegally parked cars blocking our cars in on our drive. And a few times, we've had kids put their rubbish into our mailbox - that largely stopped when we moved it a metre back from the road.

All in all, it's been fine the past 15 years - even when the Real merged with the Secondär.

__________________
Down with racism. Long live miscegenation!

We live next to a secondary school, which is an international school. We're not bothered at all by the students but the twice a day SUV parade is a bit annoying.

God bless the local schools.

Not exactly that close but close enough.
What can you expect? Noise coming from children. Happy chatters. Kids playing. Funny things you'll hear, if you understand the local lingo.The most acceptable and pleasant kind of noise if you ask me.

Negatives:
Noise, maybe annoying little motor-bikes, maybe ball-games in the school courtyard, probably litter during the day from take-away lunches and at night from cans of beer. This noise is, however, sporadic. Not so much in the morning, when they're all tired anyway, some at lunchtime, and then after school they hang about for a while. The times they gather there at night are likely to be Fridays and Saturdays, but not always. After Covid, they'll have other places to go, too.

If it's a government school, no big queue of cars to collect anyone, since these children get themselves to and from school perfectly capably, on foot or by public transport. If it's a private school, possibly cars as k_and_e mentioned above.

Positives:
The chance to see a segment of the population you might not yet know, perhaps you can watch their fashion sense, pick up snippets of their conversations.

I once lived nearby a secondary school, and one day at the tramstop a bunch of teenage girls and boys were discussing contraception. They disagreed about some aspect of the pill, and suddenly one of them turned to me and asked me whether I knew how it worked and could explain. Then it was all over the show, with every kind of contraception discussed (they'd obviously just come out of a less on about it) and a lad asked me: "Would you recommend the pill? I mean, I just don't get it. Being a teenager is all about hormones. We're mad and crazy and we fly high and we are horny and our parents are dumb and life is wonderful and stupid. That's hormones, and it's hard enough to deal with. So why would I ever want I girl I liked to take a chemical pill every day, to mess with her hormones even more?"

Also, if you need an explanation of any aspect of a new technical device, you, too, can go down to the tram-stop and the teens will probably be able to teach you all the functions.


Having said all that, you needn't ever have anything to do with the school or anyone there, especially if you work away from home.

I thought you don't want any neighbours.

Speaking of owls...there is an owl in the nearby forest who is really loud at night. There is a woodpecker who is quite busy during the day, even on Sundays.. The sounds of nature are wonderful.

I grew up living near a school. It wasn't pleasant.

Currently I live in close proximity to two schools and it is OK as long as the window is closed though I can imaging it would have been worse if I was exactly next to them.

But I used to live in Lugano for a while opposite to a school. It was a primary school. Not only that kids were loud but from time to time they were renting out the space for parties at late evening hours. It was very loud and disturbing...

Do you have a chance to talk to neighbours and ask?