Harrow's schools are very good, and the state ones carry the result without any help from the famous one on the hill. Nearly every graded school in the borough is rated good or better. The primaries post strong maths scores. A third of the graded schools are outstanding. The private school gets the tourists, and the state schools get the results parents actually live with.
The six state primaries in the area averaged about 108 in the end-of-primary maths tests, a solid score for a district this busy. Vaughan Primary and Marlborough Primary are both within reach of the town centre, and St Anselm's Catholic Primary gives families a church-school option without leaving it. On the Department for Transport's modelled 2019 times, the nearest primary is about a nine-minute walk from the average home, so the school run here is mostly done on foot.
At secondary level the area has one mainstream state school with published results, and its pupils averaged about 47 on Attainment 8, the government's measure of results across eight subjects at sixteen. Harrow High School is the state secondary carrying the town's name, and St Dominic's Sixth Form College takes students on after that. Harrow School, founded in 1572, is the one everyone outside the borough has heard of, and for most local families it is a landmark.
Harrow Council's area has 29 schools with a published Ofsted grade, and 28 of them are good or better, which leaves almost nothing in the weak column. Nine are outstanding, one requires improvement and none is inadequate. Another 19 settings have no published grade yet and are not counted either way. These are borough-wide counts, and they describe the choice a family has across the council, which is wider than the walk from any one front door.
Places are handed out by the council's published admissions rules, and buying the house closest to Vaughan Primary does not on its own secure a seat in reception, however good the photos of the playground look. Families who move for a particular school should look up how far from the gate last year's final place was offered, on Harrow Council's admissions pages, and check that their own address falls inside it. The rules are published, which is more than can be said for the confidence some sellers attach to "walking distance".
Schools are one of Harrow's real strengths, and they are the reason a two-bed flat near the station is easier to justify than its price alone would suggest.