Hammersmith's schools are the best thing about living there. Every school and setting with a grade in the borough is good or better. Twelve are outstanding. Most homes have a primary within about a five-minute walk. Finding a good school is easy here; getting the specific one you picked is the hard part.
Ofsted has graded 28 schools and settings in Hammersmith and Fulham, and all 28 came out good or outstanding. Twelve are outstanding and 16 good. Not one in the borough is graded requires improvement or inadequate. A further 24 settings have no published overall grade yet, which says nothing either way about them. A clean sheet is rare enough that parents from elsewhere tend to read it twice.
The Department for Transport's modelling, from 2019, puts the nearest primary about five minutes' walk from the typical Hammersmith home and the nearest secondary about nine. The walking times hold up because schools don't move. The public transport times are older and less reliable. On the primary side, Brackenbury Primary School, Flora Gardens Primary School, John Betts Primary School and Melcombe Primary School are all in or close to the area. Places go by Hammersmith and Fulham's published admissions rules, so buying the house nearest Brackenbury earns you a place in the queue and that is all. With every graded school rated at least good, the competition is for the outstanding ones, and parents on the same street can be arguing over the same twelve.
At secondary level, Sacred Heart High School and the West London Free School are both local, and William Morris Sixth Form takes students after 16. The area also has independent schools with long reputations: Latymer Upper School, The Godolphin and Latymer School and St Paul's Girls' School are all on the list, and Ravenscourt Park Preparatory School takes the younger end. For a family weighing up a move, the useful document is the council's admissions booklet for the school you want, which shows how places were actually allocated last year. For some of these schools the decision is made by an entrance exam long before anyone checks the distance from your house.
Charles Burney, a schoolmaster, is one of Hammersmith's historic residents, though it's hard to imagine he had to face a parents' evening as competitive as the ones held here now. For a family that can afford to live in Hammersmith, the schools need the least worrying about. They are one of its real strengths, and the only competition parents face is with other parents.