Hillingdon's schools are very good, and parents here fight over which good school they get. Nine in ten graded schools are good or better. Seven are outstanding. None is inadequate. Most of the stress happens over the admissions form, because the inspection reports give parents very little to worry about.
Ofsted has graded 38 schools across the London Borough of Hillingdon, and 35 of them are good or outstanding, which is nearly all of them. Seven hold the top grade, three require improvement and none is rated inadequate. Another 44 schools in the borough have no published grade yet, so they are missing from those numbers. A parent hunting for a failing school to avoid will have to leave the borough to find one.
The schools that tell you most about the place start with Hillingdon Primary School, the one that carries the area's name. For secondary, there is Vyners School, Swakeleys School for Girls and Oak Wood School, and ACS Hillingdon International School takes the fee-paying, international route. Admissions go by Hillingdon council's published rules, and church schools and academies can set their own oversubscription criteria, so living close to Vyners or round the corner from Hillingdon Primary is no promise of a place there. The council publishes those rules every year, and reading them for the two or three schools that matter to you takes an evening. It is time far better spent than counting the minutes between front door and school gate. Buying the house with the shortest walk to the gate wins you a bet on the rules and nothing more.
Abbotsfield - Swakeleys Post 16 Centre has closed, so older listings and maps that still show it as a sixth-form option are out of date.
For schools, Hillingdon is one of the strongest choices a family can make. The quality is close to guaranteed, and the only open question is which good school you end up with.