Chelmsford's schools are good, and the results back that up. Primary pupils finish comfortably above the expected mark in maths. The secondaries score solidly on the national eight-subject measure. Nearly nine in ten graded schools in the county are good or better. Parents here argue over which good school, and that is a nice problem to have.
There are 31 mainstream state primaries in the area, and their pupils average 106 in Key Stage 2 maths. They range from The Cathedral Church of England Voluntary Aided Primary School, Chelmsford, which carries the city's name, to The Bishops' Church of England and Roman Catholic Primary School, one of the few primaries in the country run jointly by the Anglican and Catholic churches. Two churches that spent centuries apart now share one set of reading books.
Around here there are ten mainstream state secondaries, with a pupil-weighted Attainment 8 score of 56. The list includes King Edward VI Grammar School and Chelmsford County High School for Girls, the two names most parents have already heard of, along with The Beaulieu Park School on the newer estates to the north-east. The Beaulieu name once belonged to the palace Henry VIII built on the land now occupied by New Hall School, and it has moved from a Tudor residence to a state school's sports kit.
Ofsted has graded 246 schools and settings across Essex, and 218 of them are good or better, which is nearly nine in ten. Of those, 22 are outstanding, while 23 require improvement and five are inadequate. The figures cover the whole county, so they describe the system your child joins and can't tell you about any single school. Essex has spent decades as the butt of national jokes, and its inspection record is the part nobody quotes.
Places are allocated under Essex County Council's published admissions rules, and living near a school doesn't secure a place there, whatever the house's postcode suggests. The council publishes each school's admissions criteria and how places were offered last year. If one school is the reason you're buying, read those rules for that school and see how far away last year's offers reached. "Walking distance to King Edward VI" describes a walk and nothing more.
The schools are one of Chelmsford's real strengths. The hard part is getting a place at the one you want, because a good one is rarely hard to find.