Schools are the best argument Milton Keynes has. Nearly every school with a grade is good or better. Primary maths results come in above the expected mark. No school is rated inadequate. Secondary schools take every child without a selection test, so families arriving from the rest of the county can drop the tutoring budget.
Around Milton Keynes, the 20 mainstream state primaries average about 106 in the end-of-primary maths tests, which is comfortably above the score that marks the expected standard. Some of them carry the name of their own district, among them Willen Primary School and Two Mile Ash School. The original plan put a primary school in each residential grid square so children could walk or cycle to it. Of all the 1960s planning, it is the part parents have least reason to complain about.
The 8 mainstream state secondaries in the area average an Attainment 8 score of about 47, weighted by pupil numbers. Attainment 8 is the government's measure of results across eight subjects at sixteen. Shenley Brook End School, Stantonbury School and Walton High are among them. Every state secondary in Milton Keynes is a comprehensive, while the rest of Buckinghamshire still sorts children by selection. That makes the county boundary a selection boundary too, and families who cross it into Milton Keynes find the test has gone.
Milton Keynes has 41 of its 43 graded schools and settings rated good or outstanding by Ofsted, which is all but two, and those figures count the whole local authority, rural villages included. Six of them are outstanding, two require improvement and none is inadequate. Another 53 have no published grade yet, which tells you nothing either way about how good they are. For parents, the real worry here is getting a place, because the inspection results give them very little to worry about.
Milton Keynes City Council allocates places using its published admissions rules, so buying the house nearest a named school gets you a short walk and no promise of a place. Before committing to a street, ask the council which schools have actually offered places to children living there in recent years. Buyers who pick a house by measuring the distance to the school gate find out in the spring whether the council measured it the same way.
Strong grades, decent results and no selection test at ten make the schools one of the city's real strengths. The parent's job here is mostly getting the admissions forms right.