Where to live in Sharm El Sheikh with children: school, clinic, courtyard and beach

Sharm El Sheikh is a resort, and that is the first thing that worries a family thinking of living here with children: where is the school, where is the doctor, where is a courtyard without cars, and where are the other children in winter when the tourists have gone? There are answers, but they depend on the area and the compound more than on the town as a whole. This article is about choosing a home in Sharm for a family with children: the questions to ask before the viewings, what to check in a compound, which areas suit which age, and what our directory says about children's facilities in the compounds.

The school decides the area

Sharm has fewer schools to choose from than Hurghada, but it has them: international schools with an English curriculum, private Egyptian schools, nurseries, online schooling on the Russian curriculum with an in-person community around it. Most families who live in town all year choose Hadaba — the residential plateau above the sea where the schools, the clinic and the markets are close and the neighbours are permanent. So the order is simple: first the school, then the area, then the flat. Visit the school before the viewings, learn the language of instruction, the fees, the waiting list and the bus timetable — and count the way home from there. A flat with a view forty minutes from school loses to a flat without one ten minutes away.

Areas for a family

• Hadaba — for year-round living with a school: shops, pharmacies and clinics along the main road, quiet evenings, permanent neighbours. The drawback is the descent to the beach, which is more often a public shore or a hotel's.
• Montazah — for a family that needs the beach every day: low-rise buildings by private beaches, the water two or three minutes away according to the directory cards, quiet. Shops and school are by car.
• Nabq — for a family with a car that wants grounds, space and recent ready homes: large resorts with pools, water parks and playgrounds. Hard without a car; far from school.
• Naama Bay — convenient without a car, everything close, but noisy evenings by the promenade; families choose the heights above the bay, the second row back.
• Sharks Bay — for a family of divers: the reef by the house, but a rocky shore with steps, not for toddlers at the water.

What matters for children in a compound

A children's pool separate from the adult one, a playground in the shade, closed grounds without through traffic, security at the gate, other children. The last is the most important and the hardest to check: an empty resort with a perfect playground is worse than a modest building where children play in the yard. Come on a weekday evening and see who is out.

In our directory children's pools are declared at Jasmine Residence and Sunny Lakes in Naama Bay, at The View Resort, Oasis Villas and Royal Residence 5 — where the wording is 'pools including a children's one'. Playgrounds are declared at most resorts: Delta Sharm, Sunterra, Sunny Lakes, Jasmine, Porto Sharm, The View, Oasis Villas, Moona Sharm, Golf Heights, Sunny Beach, Orchid El Montazah, Shark's Bay Oasis and the Sharm Bay site. Water parks at Jasmine Residence, Sea Beach Aqua Park, Moona Sharm Resort and Sunny Village. A medical point on site at Delta Sharm, Sunterra and Sunny Beach.

Amenity lists come from the Dommare directory cards, with sources named; where an amenity is stated only by an aggregator, the card says so. A playground in the list says nothing about its condition — that is checked with your own eyes.

A family flat: what to look at

1. Two bedrooms at least, and the second one not a 'study' of the listing: a window, a door, air-conditioning.
2. Floor and lift: a fourth floor without a lift with a pushchair is a daily task; Sharm's low-rise buildings often have no lift.
3. Terrace and balcony: railing height, gaps between the bars, glazing — balconies in Sharm are large and low.
4. Air-conditioning in every bedroom, not just the living room: summer nights are hot.
5. Water: the tank, the pressure in the evening when everyone showers, a filter or drinking-water delivery.
6. The kitchen: closed or open, an extractor, a place for the washing machine.
7. Noise: windows onto the pool, where music plays until late, versus windows onto the courtyard.
8. The way from the door to the car and from the gate to the beach without crossing the main road.

Medicine and daily life

Sharm has a state hospital, private clinics and hospitals, dentists and pharmacies at every corner. For colds, tests and holiday injuries that is enough; complex cases mean Cairo or Europe, and permanent residents plan for it through insurance with evacuation. For a family that means a clinic with a paediatrician ten minutes away is a criterion for choosing an area on a par with the school, and it should be checked in person, not on a map. Groceries, children's goods and medicines are available, but the choice of imports is smaller than at home and narrower out of season. Sharm's Russian-speaking community is smaller than Hurghada's but active: chats, meetings, help with doctors and schools — for a relocating family that matters more than any guidebook.

Two scenarios

A family moving for years: Hadaba, a two- or three-bedroom flat near the school, a living compound with security and a courtyard, the beach at weekends by car. A family wintering with pre-schoolers: Montazah or Nabq, a resort with a children's pool and a playground, the beach two minutes away, a car for the shops. These are starting points, not rules — and in both cases the decision begins not with a flat but with one day in town: the school or nursery in the morning, the clinic in the afternoon, the compound courtyard in the evening.