Fairford's schools are good, and the town keeps its own secondary, which a place this size rarely manages. The primaries in and around it score well in maths. Farmor's School takes children through to the end of sixth form without anyone needing to leave town. Across the county, nearly nine in ten graded schools are rated good or better. Of all the things a buyer worries about here, schools come near the bottom of the list.
There are six mainstream state primaries in the area, and their pupils average about 106 in the end-of-primary maths tests. Fairford Church of England Primary School is the one in the town itself. Meysey Hampton and Hatherop each have their own Church of England primary, and Kempsford and Southrop add two more village schools nearby. Most of them are small Church of England schools spread across the villages, so a lot of families get a village school without living in Cirencester.
The secondary picture is simpler, because the area has one mainstream state secondary and it is Farmor's School. Its pupils averaged an Attainment 8 score of about 49. Ofsted rated it Outstanding in 2010 and Good in 2013, then dropped it to Requires Improvement in 2017 before rating it Good again in 2021. Having only one secondary in town saves Fairford parents a lot of open evenings, though not always a lot of worry.
Gloucestershire County Council's area has 156 schools and other settings with a published Ofsted grade, and 136 of them are good or better, close to nine in every ten. Nine are outstanding, 19 require improvement and one is inadequate. Those counts cover the whole county, so they describe where Fairford is rather than its own few schools. Another 95 settings have no published grade yet and are left out of the count.
Places are allocated under the council's published admissions rules, so living within sight of Farmor's School or the primary does not by itself win a seat. Families who arrive in the middle of a school year sometimes find the village schools full, because small schools fill up fast. The Department for Transport's 2019 modelling puts the nearest secondary about 35 minutes' walk from the average home, or about 11 minutes by car. Families picturing a teenager strolling to Farmor's should walk the route from the actual house first, because that average is spread across villages as well as the town.
The schools are one of Fairford's real strengths. The primaries do well, the secondary is in the town, and parents here can spend their worrying on the mortgage.