Brentwood's schools are a reason to move here, not a risk you put up with. Nearly nine in ten graded schools across the county are good or better. A primary is a short walk from most homes. The nearest secondary is a few minutes further. Getting a place is the hard part, which tells you how much other parents want one.
Essex County Council's area has 246 schools and early-years settings with a published Ofsted grade, and 218 of them are rated good or outstanding, close to nine in every ten. Of those, 22 are outstanding. At the other end, 23 require improvement and five are inadequate, and another 238 settings have not yet been given a grade. These counts cover the whole county, from Brentwood out to the coast, so they describe the system your child joins rather than the school at the end of your road.
The town has a good spread of state options. On the secondary side there are Shenfield High School, Brentwood County High School, Brentwood Ursuline Convent High School and Becket Keys Church of England Free School, and the primaries run from Hogarth and Larchwood in town to Hutton All Saints' and Ingrave Johnstone further out. Places go by the council's published admissions rules, so living near Shenfield High does not give you a place there, however close the front door is. The Department for Transport's modelled journey times from 2019 put the nearest primary about a 12-minute walk from the average home and the nearest secondary about 21 minutes. Walk the actual morning route to the secondary you have in mind, because a modelled average does not tell you which side of the A12 your child ends up on. Parents who choose a house for the primary and leave the secondary until later tend to find out about the faith schools' admissions criteria the hard way.
Brentwood School has been here since 1557, founded by Sir Anthony Browne, and a plaque inside marks where the Protestant martyr William Hunter was burnt at the stake two years earlier. A Year 9 detention looks quite mild against that.
Schools are one of Brentwood's real strengths. The question for most families is which good school they get, and few towns can say that.