Cinderford's schools sit inside one of the better-graded school systems around. Almost nine in ten of the county's inspected schools are rated good or better. The town has three primaries of its own. It has one secondary, which has changed its name more often than most people change their car. For families, education is one of the less worrying parts of moving here.
Gloucestershire County Council's area has 136 schools rated good or outstanding out of 156 that hold a published Ofsted grade, which comes to roughly seven in every eight. Nine of those are outstanding, 19 require improvement and one is rated inadequate. A further 95 settings have no published grade yet. These are county-wide counts, so they describe the system Cinderford's children go through and say nothing about any one school's corridors.
Primary choice in town comes down to Steam Mills Primary School, St White's Primary School and Forest View Primary School. Forest View is the result of merging the old Latimer Junior and Bilson Infants schools into one. On the Department for Transport's 2019 modelling, the nearest primary is about a 13-minute walk from the average home. Being close to a school counts for less than parents hope, because places go by the council's published admissions rules, and those rules don't promise a place to the house nearest the gate. Read Gloucestershire's admissions criteria for the specific school alongside its latest Ofsted report, since the brochure is less useful than either. Littledean Church of England Primary School is a short drive away and gives families in Littledean and Ruspidge another option.
Secondary is one school on Causeway Road, now called Forest High School. It started as a secondary modern on another site, went through a community-school name, turned into an academy in 2012, was renamed again in 2014 and took its current name in 2015. The buildings stayed where they were while the signs kept changing. On the same 2019 modelling it is about a half-hour walk or ten minutes by car from the average home, and Dene Magna School is the other secondary on the local list. A further education college opened beside the Forest Vale Industrial Estate in 2018, so sixth formers who want a college course can stay in town.
In short, the schools are one of the town's real strengths: the county's inspection record is strong, and choosing a school here mostly means picking between good options and avoiding nothing worse.