The schools in Maida Vale are very good, and on Ofsted's current grades there is no weak one to avoid. Every graded school in the borough is rated good or better. Over a third of them are outstanding. The modelled walk to the nearest primary is about five minutes. Getting a place is harder than finding a good school.
Ofsted has published an overall grade for 25 schools across Westminster, and all 25 are good or outstanding. Nine are outstanding, and none is rated requires improvement or inadequate. Those counts cover the whole borough, so Maida Vale shares them with Paddington, Marylebone and Pimlico. Another 18 settings have no published overall grade yet, usually because they are new or have not been inspected under the current framework. That says nothing about their quality either way. Westminster is a borough where the worst school on the list is still good.
The schools named in and around the district include Essendine Primary School and Ark Atwood Primary Academy at primary level, with Paddington Academy and St George's Catholic School among the nearest secondaries. Maida Vale School is the one that carries the area's name. The Department for Transport's modelled journey times, from 2019, put the nearest primary about five minutes' walk from the average home and the nearest secondary about ten. Westminster City Council allocates places using its published admissions rules, and church and academy schools often set criteria of their own, so living within sight of a school gate does not secure a place. The gate is the part of the school you are guaranteed to get. Check Westminster's admissions booklet for each school you are counting on and see how far away the last child offered a place lived in recent years. That distance can be shorter than the walk from the flat you are looking at.
The lack of choice is the real problem, more than school quality. Across a borough this small, a short commute to school depends on where the council's admissions rules put your street. Parents who assume that any good school nearby will take their child tend to learn the rules from the offer letter.
Schools are among Maida Vale's strongest points, with every graded school in the borough rated good or better. In this part of Westminster, the hard part is getting a place, not finding a good school.