There is one school, and Ofsted rates it good. No choice, no catchment war, no estate agent adding a premium for the right side of a road. Primary teaching happens on several islands, secondary on one. Sixth form happens somewhere else entirely. The school question here is not which one, it is how your child gets there.
The Ofsted picture is as short as the school register. Across the Isles of Scilly local authority, one setting carries a published overall effectiveness grade, and that setting is rated good, so every graded school in the authority is good or better. None is rated outstanding, none requires improvement, and none is inadequate. The local-authority framing that usually matters on these pages, where a council's wider record drags a good local school's context down, does no work at all here, because the authority and the area are the same thing. One school, one grade, nothing hiding behind an average.
That school is The Five Islands Academy, which handles both primary and secondary. Primary teaching is delivered across island sites including St Agnes, St Martin's, Tresco and St Mary's, with secondary based on St Mary's. Secondary pupils living off St Mary's board at Mundesley House during the week, which is the detail mainland buyers tend to sit with for a while. Weekly boarding at eleven is not a lifestyle choice made by ambitious parents here. It is what happens when the school run involves a boat and the weather gets a vote.
Sixteen to eighteen year olds are entitled to a free sixth form place at a state school or sixth form college on the mainland, with flights provided and a grant towards accommodation. Put plainly: your child finishes secondary on the islands and then leaves, at sixteen, for two years. Families either treat that as the natural shape of an island childhood or they do not, and the ones who have not thought it through before buying tend to think about very little else afterwards.
Naming the school is not the same as securing a place in it, and admission is decided by the authority's process rather than by which property you buy. With a single provider covering both phases, the usual catchment gamesmanship is pointless, but the practical questions are worth asking before you exchange: which island site your child would attend, how boarding works for your year group, and what happens when the crossing is cancelled.
Schools are one of the clearest strengths on these islands. Every graded setting is good, there is no weak alternative to be allocated to by accident, and the only real hurdle is logistical rather than educational.