Morden's schools are good, and the grades back that up. The primaries do well in the tests. Every graded school in the borough is rated good or better. There is only one secondary school in the area, so choosing a secondary takes longer than choosing a primary. For parents, this is the most reliable thing Morden has going for it.
Around here there are eight mainstream state primaries, and their pupils average about 108 in the Key Stage 2 maths test. Morden Primary School is one of them, along with Hatfeild, Malmesbury and St Teresa's Catholic Primary School. The Department for Transport's 2019 model put the walk to the nearest primary at about seven minutes, so most children here could reach a classroom before their parents reach the end of the road.
There is only one mainstream state secondary in the area, Harris Academy Morden, and its pupils average an Attainment 8 score of about 47. Living in Morden effectively means planning around that school, or around a longer journey out of the area. The same 2019 model puts the walk to the nearest secondary at about 16 minutes, against about seven for a primary. That longer walk starts just as children stop wanting to be walked anywhere.
Merton is the borough Ofsted grades as a whole, and of its 19 settings with a published overall grade, all 19 are rated good or better. Seven are outstanding, 12 are good, and none is rated requires improvement or inadequate. Another 27 settings have no published grade yet, which means they haven't been graded, not that they did badly. No school in Merton has a poor grade.
Places go by Merton's published admissions rules, so living a short walk from a school does not secure your child a place there, and the furthest distance offered can change from year to year. With eight primaries competing for the same streets of three-bed terraces, a single large year group can shift who gets in. Look up last year's furthest-offered distance for the school you have in mind on the council's admissions pages, and check how your street measures up against it. Parents who moved here for the schools will tell you which primary their child got into before they mention the garden.
Schools are one of Morden's real strengths, with no weak grades anywhere in the borough. The one thing to plan for is that there is only a single local secondary.