The schools around Great Missenden are good. For many parents the harder part comes at secondary age, when the choice is between the local school and a journey out to a grammar school in another town. Nearly nine in ten graded schools across the county are good or better. The village has its own combined primary, and there is a secondary nearby. A lot of local children still go out of the valley each morning to grammar schools in nearby towns.
Ofsted has graded 94 schools across Buckinghamshire, and 80 of them are good or outstanding, nearly nine in ten. Nineteen have the top grade. Eleven require improvement and three are inadequate, so the county does have some weaker schools, though only a few. Another 94 settings have no published grade yet and are not included in those counts. All of these figures cover the whole of Buckinghamshire, so the outstanding schools and the inadequate ones could be anywhere in the county.
Places are allocated under Buckinghamshire Council's published admissions rules, so living close to a school doesn't guarantee a place there. Church of England schools can also set their own oversubscription criteria, and two of the primaries named below are church schools. It makes sense to ask the council how far from the gate places reached in recent years for the school in question. About 46% of homes in Great Missenden have four or more bedrooms, so a lot of families with children are applying for the same small number of village places.
Great Missenden CofE Combined School is the school that carries the village's name. Prestwood has separate infant and junior schools, Prestwood Infant School and Prestwood Junior School. Little Kingshill Combined School and Lee Common Church of England School cover two of the nearby villages. The Misbourne School is the nearby secondary. Many children go further, to grammar schools in Amersham, Chesham, Little Chalfont and High Wycombe, or to private preparatory schools in the area. Gateway School and Missenden Abbey Adult Education College complete the local list. For a lot of families, the secondary that matters most to them is in another town.
The schools are one of Great Missenden's real strengths, as long as parents read the admissions rules as closely as the Ofsted grades.