Cholsey's schools are good, and the primary is in the village itself. Its own primary is a short walk from most front doors. Secondary school means a bus or a lift. Across the county, nearly nine in ten graded schools are good or better. The awkward part comes at eleven, and the school runs are what get harder, not the schools.
Cholsey Primary School is the village's own, and on the Department for Transport's 2019 modelling the average walk to a primary from homes in the area is about eleven minutes. One mainstream state primary in the area has published Key Stage 2 results, with an average maths score of 107. With one school and one year group, that number is a single cohort, and a single cohort is a class with its own good and bad years. The area this page covers also takes in Brightwell-cum-Sotwell and South Moreton, which have their own village primaries: Brightwell-Cum-Sotwell Church of England Primary School and South Moreton Primary School. Three villages, three primaries, and every one of them within reach of a pushchair.
Oxfordshire County Council's schools, inspected by Ofsted, are rated good or better in 108 of 121 graded cases, which is close to nine in ten. Eleven are outstanding, ten require improvement and three are inadequate. Those counts cover the whole county, from Banbury to the Berkshire border, and describe what Ofsted found across Oxfordshire, so they say nothing on their own about the school at the end of any one road.
Places are allocated under the county council's published admissions rules, so living near a school does not secure a place there, and a church school can weigh faith alongside distance. Oxfordshire publishes how far from each school the last place was offered in recent years, and that figure is worth looking up for the specific address on the shortlist. Distance from the gate is something people check after they have bought, on the morning the offer letters arrive.
Secondary is where village life stops being walkable. The same 2019 modelling puts the average walk to a secondary at about 48 minutes, against about 12 minutes by car and about 32 by public transport. Wallingford School is the nearest named option, with St Birinus School and Didcot Girls' School further west in Didcot. For families wanting to go private, Moulsford Preparatory School is on the list nearby. The primary years are spent walking past the walnut tree, and the secondary years are spent waiting at a bus stop.
The schools are one of Cholsey's real strengths, with a primary in every village and a well-rated county behind them, and the only real cost comes at eleven, when the walk to school becomes a lift.