Holbury's schools sit in one of the better-graded patches of the country. Almost nine in ten graded schools across the county are good or better. The nearest primary school is under ten minutes' walk away. The nearest secondary school is a ten-minute drive. The weak point is the admissions system, not the teaching.
Ofsted has graded 211 schools across Hampshire, and 185 of them are good or outstanding, so the strong schools far outnumber the struggling ones. There are 27 outstanding schools, 16 rated requires improvement and 10 rated inadequate. These are county-wide counts, not a tally of Holbury's own schools, and they include settings a long way from the Waterside. Another 226 settings in the county hold no published overall grade yet, and they aren't counted in either direction. The county figures tell you the odds of a poor school turning up nearby are low. They don't vouch for any particular school, which is the kind of distinction that gets lost at the school gate.
Getting there is easy at primary age. The Department for Transport's 2019 modelling puts the nearest primary school about nine minutes' walk from the average home, or seven minutes by car. The nearest secondary school is about 27 minutes' walk, 10 minutes by car or about 19 minutes by public transport. That secondary walk is long enough that most parents will end up doing school runs, at least in winter.
The local list includes Cadland Primary School, Blackfield Primary and Nursery School and Manor Church of England Infant School, with Noadswood School and Applemore College at secondary level. None of them comes with a grade on this page, and none should be taken as a guaranteed place. Admission depends on the council's rules, not on which school is closest. Parents who assume otherwise sometimes buy the house in March and find out their allocation in April. The rules are published, and reading them before the offer goes in costs nothing.
Across Hampshire, good schools are the norm rather than a lucky find. That makes schooling one of Holbury's real strengths, as long as buyers check admissions before they buy rather than after.