Marlow's schools are very good, and the parents here behave like it. The primaries post strong maths results. There are two secondaries, and one of them is a grammar. Across the county, most graded schools are good or better. Of all the things Marlow charges for, the schools are the bit that delivers.
There are seven mainstream state primaries in the area, and at the end of primary school their pupils averaged about 108 in the maths test. Names around the town include Spinfield School, Foxes Piece School and Marlow Church of England Infant School, with St Peter's Catholic Primary School and Holy Trinity Church of England School among the rest. On the Department for Transport's 2019 modelling, the nearest primary is about a 10-minute walk from the average home, which is the one part of the school run in Marlow that never needs the car.
The area has two mainstream state secondaries, Sir William Borlase's Grammar School and Great Marlow School, and their pupils averaged an Attainment 8 score of about 58 at the end of Year 11. The word grammar in the first name tells parents there is a test in the story somewhere, and the second school is where much of the rest of the town goes. The nearest secondary is about a 22-minute walk on the same 2019 modelling. Remnantz on West Street once housed the junior wing of the army's officer training before it moved to Sandhurst; the cadets left, and the ambition stayed behind.
Across Buckinghamshire as a whole, Ofsted has graded 80 of 94 schools and settings as good or better, which is about six in every seven. Nineteen are outstanding, 11 require improvement and three are inadequate. Settings still waiting for a published grade are left out of those counts, and the picture is county-wide, so it describes the system Marlow's children sit inside more than any particular classroom on the High Street.
Places are allocated under Buckinghamshire Council's published admissions rules, and living near Spinfield or Great Marlow School does not by itself secure a seat, whatever the street name suggests. The rules are public, the deadlines are fixed, and the process rewards whoever reads them first. Marlow F.C. has applied to enter the FA Cup every season since 1871, and some local families approach the secondary application with much the same persistence.
The schools are one of Marlow's real strengths: strong results at both ends, a county system that mostly grades well, and a choice of secondary that most towns this size would envy. Families get what they moved for, provided they did the paperwork as carefully as the house-hunting.