Good, and the house prices already know it. Surrey rates about nine in ten of its graded schools good or better. The nearest state secondary is a drive away for most families. Private schools are dotted all over the surrounding lanes. Finding a good school is easy here. Getting a place is the part that needs a plan.
Ofsted has graded 159 schools across Surrey, and 147 of them are rated good or outstanding, which is more than nine in ten. Thirty hold the top grade. At the other end, 7 require improvement and 5 are rated inadequate. These counts cover the whole county council area rather than East Horsley on its own, so they describe the system the village sits in, not the school at the end of the road. Another 194 settings have no published grade yet and aren't part of that total. A county this consistent leaves parents very little to complain about, and some of them manage anyway.
A good county record doesn't guarantee a good allocation. Living near a named school doesn't secure a place there, and admissions depend on each school's own rules and on how many other families apply the same year. In an area where the schools are part of the reason people pay these prices, those other families are rarely few. Check the admissions criteria and last year's allocations for every school on your list before you commit to a house, because the estate agent's "close to excellent schools" isn't something an admissions office has to honour.
Howard of Effingham School is the named local state secondary. In the Department for Transport's 2019 modelling, the nearest secondary is about 13 minutes by car, 25 by public transport and 54 on foot, so the school run is a car journey whether anyone planned it or not. The nearest primary is about 9 minutes by car and 23 on foot. St Lawrence Primary School and The Raleigh School are among the named state primaries nearby. Beyond them sits a thick band of independent schools, including Cranmore School, Notre Dame School and the Yehudi Menuhin School. For some East Horsley families, the question is which fee-paying school to choose rather than which state school to apply for. For families relying on the state sector, that independent spread matters in a quieter way: every child in a private place is one fewer application competing for yours.
One nearby Church of England primary has closed and is no longer an option, whatever an old listing or search result says.
Schools are one of East Horsley's real strengths. The county's record is about as dependable as English state education gets, and the only serious obstacle is how many other buyers moved here for the same reason.