Of all the things a buyer worries about in Battersea, schools should be near the bottom of the list. Almost every school in the borough with a grade is rated good or better. Nine are outstanding. None is failing. What keeps parents awake here is getting a place.
Wandsworth Council's area, which takes in Battersea, has 40 schools with a published Ofsted grade, and 38 of them are good or outstanding, so only two fall short. Nine are outstanding, two require improvement and none is inadequate. Another 30 settings in the borough have no published grade yet, either because they have never been inspected or because their result is still to come. They are missing from the count, not marked down in it. A borough that hands out only two below-good grades in 40 has made the school run the most dependable part of family life here.
Most families are close to a school. The Department for Transport's modelled journey times, from 2019, put the nearest primary about a six-minute walk away and the nearest secondary about eleven. Being close to a school is a different thing from getting a place at it. Places are given out under the council's published admissions rules, so living round the corner from a school does not secure one. Church and academy schools can set their own criteria on top. Ask Wandsworth for last year's allocation figures for the school you are counting on, and read them before you pay the deposit. A garden that backs onto the playground does not get a child through the gate.
A handful of names show what the area offers. Harris Academy Battersea is the secondary that carries the district's name, and Ark Bolingbroke Academy and Saint John Bosco College are the other local secondaries. At primary age, Shaftesbury Park Primary School takes its name from the Victorian estate around it. Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School, Battersea is one of the schools whose religious admissions criteria can turn Sunday mornings into part of the application. The other primaries are a mix of community schools and academy trusts. There are fee-paying options too, including Thomas's Battersea and L'Ecole de Battersea, for families who would rather pay fees than gamble on the admissions system.
Few things a Battersea buyer weighs are as reassuring as the schools. The grades are good almost all the way through, and the only real fight is for a place.