The schools are good, and the parents here are determined to keep them that way. Nearly every graded school in the borough is rated good or better. There are a dozen state primaries in and around Caversham. There's one state secondary on the doorstep and a second option over the county line. For most families the problem is getting a place, not finding a good school.
Primary is the strong end. The 12 mainstream state primaries in the area average a maths score of 106 at the end of primary school. Caversham Primary School is the one with the place's name on the gate. Emmer Green Primary School and The Hill Primary School serve the northern streets, and The Heights Primary School exists because the west of Caversham ran out of places. It opened in temporary buildings, then took years to settle on a permanent site on Mapledurham Playing Fields after the neighbours objected. People in Caversham want good schools. They don't always want them built near their house.
Secondary is a smaller picture. The two mainstream state secondaries in the area post a pupil-weighted Attainment 8 score of 49. Highdown School and Sixth Form Centre is the local state secondary, and plenty of Caversham families look across the boundary to Maiden Erlegh Chiltern Edge in South Oxfordshire. With only two state secondaries, choosing one mostly means working out which one you can get into. On the independent side, Queen Anne's School takes girls from 11 to 18 and Caversham Preparatory School takes children from three to 11, for families who would rather pay fees than rely on admissions criteria.
Ofsted has graded 26 settings across the Reading local authority, and 24 of them are good or better, so almost all of them clear the bar. Two are outstanding. One requires improvement and one is inadequate. These counts cover the whole borough, not only Caversham, so they describe the wider school system Caversham families are part of, not a list of Caversham's own schools. Plenty of other settings have no published grade yet, and that says nothing either way about how good they are.
Buying near a school doesn't get your child a place there. Admissions run on the council's criteria, and for the popular primaries those criteria decide who gets in. They don't decide how much you paid for the house. Check the latest admissions arrangements for the specific school and year before you offer, not after the allocation letter arrives. Buyers who assume a postcode guarantees a place are the ones writing appeal letters in spring.
Schools are one of Caversham's real strengths, and the house prices are partly what you pay for them.