The schools in Henley are good, and for once the price tag isn't exaggerating. The primaries score well above the expected standard. There is one state secondary, and its results hold up. Almost nine in ten schools across the county are graded good or better. The expensive bit is getting close enough to use them.
Primary is where the town does its best work. In the latest Key Stage 2 results, pupils at the nine state primaries in the area averaged a maths score of about 107, comfortably above the expected standard. Valley Road School, Badgemore Primary School and Trinity Church of England Primary School serve the town itself, and the rest are spread across the villages on the hills and along the river. Parents who have spent an evening comparing primary results to two decimal places will find the local ones hold up fine. What they won't find is anything to worry about in the maths.
The secondary picture is simpler, because there's only one state secondary to look at. Gillotts School is the mainstream state secondary counted in the area, and its pupils averaged an Attainment 8 score of about 61, which is a strong result. The Henley College takes students on to sixth-form study. One state secondary means there's no league table to agonise over, just one school and the question of whether the family's address can reach it. Shiplake College and St Mary's School sit alongside it for families paying fees, which keeps the school-gate conversation lively.
Ofsted's figures are for all of Oxfordshire rather than Henley alone, and they are solid. Of the 121 settings with a published overall grade, 108 are rated good or better, close to nine in ten. Eleven are outstanding, ten require improvement and three are inadequate. Settings without a published grade are not counted either way. The county-wide spread tells you the local authority is a safe place to be a pupil. It doesn't tell you which classroom your child will be in.
That depends on admissions, and a school's name on a map is not a place in it. Living near a school does not guarantee a seat, admission rules vary between schools, and oversubscription criteria change from year to year. Check the admissions arrangements for the specific school before exchanging contracts, not after the offer letter arrives. The families who find out in spring that their house didn't count usually did their homework on the kitchen and not on the admissions policy.
Schools are one of Henley's real strengths: high primary scores, a strong single secondary and a county that mostly gets it right. The only hard part is buying the address.