Clerkenwell's schools are excellent, and the catch is finding a home big enough for the child. Nearly every graded school in the borough is good or better. The nearest primary is about a five-minute walk. A secondary is about a quarter of an hour away. The hard part is the third bedroom.
Islington, the borough Clerkenwell belongs to, has 25 schools with a published Ofsted grade, and 24 of them are rated good or outstanding. That is almost all of them. Seven are outstanding, 17 are good, none requires improvement, and one is inadequate. Another 32 settings in the borough have no published grade yet, which tells you nothing either way about how good they are. In a borough with one weak grade out of 25, the playground arguments are about which outstanding school to choose.
Living near a good school doesn't get a child into it. Islington Council allocates places under its published admissions rules, and those rules decide who gets in, however close a buyer has moved to the school gate. Check where last year's places were actually offered on the council's admissions pages, because two nearby schools have closed recently and older guides still send families to them. That check matters more here than in most places, because the map has changed recently.
Three state primaries are close to Clerkenwell's streets: Christopher Hatton Primary School, Hugh Myddelton Primary School and St Alban's Church of England Primary School. Charterhouse Square School is also nearby, named after the square around the old Carthusian monastery. The Department for Transport's modelled journey times, which date from 2019, put the nearest primary about five minutes' walk from the typical home and the nearest secondary about 16 minutes on foot or 15 by public transport. Walking distances don't change much. The bus times may have. Most children here can get to school on foot, which is just as well in a place where hardly anyone owns a car.
For families who can make the space work, schools are one of Clerkenwell's real strengths. The supply of good places is the easy part. The supply of three-bedroom homes is where the plan usually runs into trouble.