Cirencester's schools are good, and choosing a secondary here mostly means choosing between two decent options. The primaries test well. Two state secondaries split the town between them. Across the county, almost nine in ten graded schools come out good or better. The parents arguing at the school gate are mostly arguing about parking.
There are 13 mainstream state primaries in the area, and their pupils average a Key Stage 2 maths score of about 104. Cirencester Primary School carries the town's name. Chesterton, Watermoor and Stratton Church of England primaries each take the name of a part of town, and Siddington Church of England Primary School covers the village that has almost joined onto Watermoor. Powell's Church of England Primary School is another option in the town.
At secondary level, the two mainstream state secondaries in the area average an Attainment 8 score of about 51. They are Cirencester Deer Park School on Stroud Road and Cirencester Kingshill School on Kingshill Lane. Cirencester College stands next to Deer Park and has run the sixth form for both schools since 1991. So whichever of the two a family picks at eleven, the teenagers end up at the same college at sixteen. Rendcomb College is the independent option, and it takes pupils from 3 to 18.
Ofsted has graded 136 of 156 settings good or outstanding across Gloucestershire, nearly nine in ten. Nine of those are outstanding, 19 require improvement and one is inadequate. The figures cover the whole county, from one end to the other, and say nothing about any single Cirencester school. They show the standard local schools are measured against, and the standard is decent.
Places are given out under Gloucestershire County Council's published admissions rules, so a house round the corner from Chesterton Primary does not come with a place there. Department for Transport models from 2019 put the average walk to a primary at about 13 minutes and to a secondary at about 23. The walk to Stroud Road from the Watermoor or Stratton side of town is the one to time yourself at eight in the morning, because the model averages it and your child will not. Families who move here for one particular primary and land in another usually find out it was fine all along. They are just less pleased about how they found out.
Cirencester's schools are one of the town's real strengths. A parent can stop worrying about education here and move on to worrying about the drive to Kemble.