Forest Gate's schools are very good, and the local authority behind them has no failing schools on its books. Every graded school in the borough is rated good or better. Not one is graded below that. Almost half are outstanding. Here, finding a good school is easy and getting a place at the one you want is the hard part.
Ofsted has graded 50 schools across Newham, the borough that covers Forest Gate, and all 50 are good or better: 22 outstanding and 28 good, with none rated requires improvement and none inadequate. Another 38 settings in the borough have no published grade yet, and they are not counted in either figure. When Newham parents argue at the school gate, the choice they are arguing about is good against outstanding.
The Department for Transport's 2019 modelling puts the nearest primary about a six-minute walk from the average Forest Gate home, and the nearest secondary about nine minutes away. Newham Council allocates places under its published admissions rules, so buying a house near a named school does not earn a child a seat in it, and those walking times say how close the buildings are and nothing about who gets in. Read the council's admissions criteria for the specific school, and the offers made last year, before settling on a street. Being able to see the playground from the bedroom window counts for less with the admissions office than buyers tend to hope.
Forest Gate Community School is the secondary that carries the area's name, and St Angela's Ursuline School is the other secondary in the area's own list. At primary age, Woodgrange Infant School and Godwin Junior School are among the schools close to the terraced streets, along with Elmhurst, Earlham, Sandringham and William Davies primaries. Woodgrange Infant shares its name with the Woodgrange Estate, one of the conservation areas in the district, so some children walk to school past front doors that need council consent before anyone can repaint them.
Schools are one of Forest Gate's real strengths, and the only serious contest is over which of several strong schools a child ends up in.