The schools in Chelsea are very good, and they are the part of the place that costs nothing extra once you are in. The primaries score well above the expected mark in maths. Nearly every school the borough has had graded is good or outstanding. There is one state secondary in the area, so the choice at eleven is short. Most of the competition is for a place, and very little of it is about quality.
There are 4 mainstream state primaries in the area, and their pupils average about 109 on the end-of-primary maths test. Among them are Christ Church CofE Primary School and Marlborough Primary School, with Oratory Roman Catholic Primary School and St Joseph's Catholic Primary School making up the four. With only four schools, one strong or weak year group can move that average, though a figure that high takes some moving. Chelsea's first college, King James's in 1609, was for theology, and the site went to old soldiers when Charles II founded the Royal Hospital there in 1682. The current crop of schools has held on to its pupils better.
St. Thomas More Language College is the one mainstream state secondary in the area, and its pupils average an Attainment 8 score of about 46. A single school makes the area's secondary picture one school's results, good years and bad. The name belongs to Chelsea's best-known Tudor resident, who lived more or less next door to the king's manor house and would at least have recognised the neighbourhood.
Kensington and Chelsea is the authority behind the Ofsted counts, and across the whole borough Ofsted has graded 20 of its 22 graded schools good or outstanding, almost all of them. Eight are outstanding. One requires improvement and one is inadequate, and those two make up the borough's entire bad-news column. The count covers the borough from the river to the north end of Ladbroke Grove's side of the map, so it describes the council's schools in general and Chelsea's along with them.
Places are handed out under Kensington and Chelsea's published admissions rules, and three of the four primaries named here are church schools with admission criteria of their own, so living on the right street near one does not get a child through the door on its own. The council publishes how last year's places went for each school, and that page is worth reading for the primary you have in mind well ahead of any move. Other schools nearby include Francis Holland Preparatory School and Garden House School, for families looking past the state list. A short walk to the gate gets a family into the conversation, and the admissions office still has the final word.
Schools are one of Chelsea's real strengths, strong at primary, solid at secondary and graded almost entirely good or better across the borough.