The schools in Farnham are good enough to set the house prices. The primaries post strong test scores. The secondaries do the same. More than nine in ten of the Ofsted-graded schools across the county are good or better. Finding a good school here is easy. Getting a place at the one you want is the hard part.
At the seven mainstream state primaries in the area, the average Key Stage 2 maths score is about 108. That's a strong result for a whole town rather than one standout school, and it means the ordinary option on the doorstep is usually a decent one. South Farnham School is the name every parent has heard, having been ranked more than once as the best state primary in the country on exam results. It is also the name that starts arguments at dinner parties about which road counts as close. Highfield South Farnham School carries the same brand further out, and a ring of church infant and junior schools covers the rest of the town and its villages.
Farnham has three mainstream state secondaries in the area, and their pupils score an average of about 56 on Attainment 8, the government's measure of how well pupils do across eight GCSE subjects. Weydon School is regularly counted among the stronger state schools in the country. All Hallows Catholic School and Farnham Heath End complete the set. After sixteen, the town's further education college takes over. It began as the old grammar school, which was already running before 1585, moved to fields south of the town in 1905 and became a sixth form college in 1973. So the town has been taking its exam results seriously for a while.
Ofsted's grades are counted across the whole of Surrey, not just Farnham, so they describe the county you're buying into rather than your road. Of 159 graded settings, 147 are good or better, which is more than nine in ten. Thirty of them are outstanding, seven require improvement and five are inadequate. Another 194 settings hold no published grade yet. That isn't a warning sign, just a gap in the paperwork.
A school's name on an estate agent's listing does not come with a place attached. Admission depends on the school's own rules, and being close enough one year guarantees nothing the next. The flat that is "a short walk" from South Farnham is marketed on the walk, but the admissions office decides. Check the school's current admissions criteria and last year's allocations before you check the kitchen. If you skip that and pay the premium anyway, you have made the most expensive mistake a Farnham buyer can make.
Surrey also has a busy independent sector, and several of its schools sit around the edges of the town: Frensham Heights School, More House School, Edgeborough School and Barfield Prep School among them. For a town where the state options are this strong, that choice is a luxury rather than an escape route. Plenty of families find that the fees they had budgeted for can go on the mortgage instead.
Schools are one of Farnham's real strengths, strong from the first year of primary to the end of sixth form. The only thing parents have to fight for is the place.