Leatherhead's schools are good, and the county around them is better than good. Nine in ten graded schools are rated good or outstanding. Both secondaries are inside the town. The nearest primary is a short walk for most families. Parents here have less to worry about than they think, and they will worry anyway.
Ofsted has given a published grade to 159 schools and settings across Surrey, and 147 of them are rated good or outstanding, a little over nine in ten. Of those, 30 are outstanding and 117 good. Seven require improvement and five are inadequate. Another 194 Surrey settings have no published grade yet, so they sit outside those numbers entirely. A Leatherhead parent will find almost all the county's graded schools are in good shape, with a few poor ones that are worth avoiding.
Leatherhead Trinity School and Nursery is the primary with the town's name on it. It opened in 2010 when three existing schools merged, and it traces its roots to a school that opened on Kingston Road in 1877. St Peter's Catholic Primary School is the other long-standing primary in town. In the villages, Fetcham Village Infant School and Great Bookham School serve the families who moved out there for the gardens. The Department for Transport modelled the walk to the nearest primary at about 15 minutes in 2019, and to the nearest secondary at about 18.
The two state secondaries are Therfield School and St Andrew's Catholic School. Therfield was founded on Kingston Road in 1913, moved to Dilston Road in 1953 and took its name in 1964 from John de Therfield, a medieval lord of the manor of Pachesham who was granted the land by King John in 1205. He remains the last person in Leatherhead to get a plot without a mortgage. Surrey County Council allocates places using its published admissions rules, so living close to either school helps without guaranteeing a place, and the council publishes each school's allocation history every year. Reading that history for both secondaries is the one piece of homework that matters, and it takes an evening.
The town also has an unusual number of other schools. West Hill School is a special school for children with learning needs and moved to Leatherhead in 1963, and Fox Grove School, a second special school, was due to move to a site next to it. St John's School moved here in 1872. It was founded for the sons of poor clergymen and now takes fee-paying pupils, a career path many Leatherhead households will recognise. Downsend School, a prep school, completes a list that gives families more choice than a town this size normally has.
Schools are one of Leatherhead's real strengths. The town has state secondaries within walking distance and good options in every sector, and for most families the only stress left is the stress they bring with them.