Schools are one of Letchworth's strengths, and the county around it is stronger still. Nearly nine in ten graded schools across the county are rated good or better. Primary maths results are solid. The town has two secondaries of its own. A town laid out for family houses turns out to have the schools to go with them.
There are nine mainstream state primaries in the area, and their pupils averaged a scaled score of about 105 in the end-of-primary maths tests. A Church of England primary serves the old village of Norton on the town's north-eastern edge. Garden City Academy is the one school that still uses the town's full title, and the railway station managed that only after dropping the "Garden City" in 1937 and later bringing it back. The infant and junior schools spread across the estates, Lordship Farm Primary and Hillshott Infant among them, account for most of the rest.
The two mainstream state secondaries in the area averaged an Attainment 8 score of about 41, weighted by pupil numbers. Fearnhill School and The Highfield School are the secondaries on Letchworth's doorstep. With only two in the area, the shortlist in Year 6 is short, and most families already know both names before they look at a prospectus.
Hertfordshire's Ofsted record covers the whole county: 203 of its 227 graded settings are rated good or outstanding, close to nine in ten. Of those, 40 are outstanding, while 21 require improvement and 3 are inadequate. Another 226 settings have no published grade yet and are left out of those counts. Your child will go to one particular school, so the county average is only a starting point.
Hertfordshire County Council allocates places under its published admissions rules, and buying a house near a named school does not secure a place there, which catches out a few buyers every spring. Look up the council's figures for how far from each school the last place was offered in recent years, and check that distance against the house you are thinking of buying. Four schools near the town have closed recently, so an older guide may still list options that no longer exist. The families who checked the allocation rules before exchanging contracts are the ones who are relaxed about it in April.
Schools are one of the things Letchworth does well. The primaries hold up and the county record is strong, so this part of the garden city plan still works as intended.