The schools in Northwood are very good, and the state ones hold their own beside some heavyweight private neighbours. The local primaries score well above the level the tests are built around. The two state secondaries post solid results. Across the wider borough, nearly every graded school is good or better. Parents here are choosing between good options, and that is a nicer problem than most of London gets.
Four mainstream state primaries in the area have published results, and their pupils averaged a scaled score of about 106 in the end-of-primary maths tests, comfortably above the level those tests are pitched at. Frithwood Primary School shares its name with one of the town's conservation areas, and Holy Trinity CofE Primary School is the local church primary. Between them and the rest, the early years in Northwood are well covered. A child here can walk to a primary that reads like a selling point, which is more than the walk to the station can say.
The secondary picture is shorter. There are two mainstream state secondaries in the area, and their pupils averaged an Attainment 8 score of about 53 across their best eight subjects at sixteen. Northwood School is the one carrying the town's name. Two schools makes a shorter menu than the primary years, and families who coasted through the infant years on choice tend to notice the drop in options around the time the Year 6 forms arrive.
The independent sector is unusually close at hand. Merchant Taylors' School, St Helen's School and Northwood College for Girls all sit within reach of Northwood, which means the state schools here are compared with fee-paying ones by the people living next door to them. The state primaries come out of that comparison rather well.
Ofsted's grades cover the whole of Hillingdon, and across that borough 35 of the 38 schools with a published grade are good or better, so more than nine in ten. Seven of them are outstanding, three require improvement and none is inadequate. Another 44 settings across the borough have no published grade yet. In Hillingdon the argument parents have is rarely about avoiding a bad school, more about which of the good ones will have them.
That last part is the council's decision. Places at state schools in Hillingdon are allocated under the council's published admissions rules, and living near a school, even one with Northwood in its name, does not by itself secure a place. A church primary like Holy Trinity can weigh things beyond distance, so read its oversubscription criteria in full when a particular school is the reason for the move. Every year, plenty of buyers find out that owning a house down the road from a school and getting a place at it are two separate things.
Schools are where Northwood is at its best. The primaries are strong, the secondaries are sound, the borough's record is close to spotless, and a family would struggle to do much better without paying fees.