Kilburn's schools are very good, and this is the one part of the area that costs nothing extra. Every graded school in the borough is at least good. Half of them are outstanding. The primaries post strong maths results. A buyer who came for the transport and stays for the schools has found one of the few bargains in the place.
Primary is where Kilburn is strongest. The 15 state primaries in the area average a Key Stage 2 maths score of about 107, which is an average across all of them, so some schools will do better than that and some worse. Kilburn Grange School and The Kilburn Park School Foundation carry the area's name, and Kingsgate Primary School and Salusbury Primary School are close by too. The Department for Transport's 2019 modelling put the nearest primary about six minutes' walk from the typical home. In Kilburn the school run is shorter than the queue for the bus.
Secondary is thinner on the ground. There are two state secondaries in the area, and their pupils averaged an Attainment 8 score of about 48. Queens Park Community School is one of them. The same 2019 modelling put the nearest secondary about 12 minutes' walk away. With only two schools behind that average, one strong or weak year group can move it, and plenty of families will be looking at schools outside Kilburn as well.
The inspection record is spotless. Ofsted has graded 25 schools across Camden, and all 25 are good or better. Thirteen are outstanding, and none requires improvement or is inadequate. Another 26 settings in the borough have no published grade yet and are left out of those counts. The 25 are Camden-wide, so they say nothing about any one classroom on any one street. Even so, a council that has nothing in its bottom two inspection grades is doing something right.
Living near a school is not the same as getting a place in it. Councils allocate places by their published admissions rules, so the school at the end of your road can still turn your child down. In Kilburn this matters more than usual, because the area straddles Camden, Brent and the City of Westminster, and the side of the High Road you live on decides which council handles your application. Find out which authority covers the exact address and read that council's admissions rules for the schools you have in mind. A few doors either way can put you under a different council's rules, and parents who learn that from the offer letter can't do much about it.
Kilburn's schools are one of its real strengths: the primaries are excellent, every graded school in Camden is at least good, and the only question is which council you end up applying to.