Poplar's schools are one of the best reasons to live there, and the inspectors agree with almost every school they have graded. Nearly every graded school in the borough is good or outstanding. Thirteen are outstanding. Only two need to improve. The difficult part is getting a place.
Poplar's 22 mainstream state primaries average about 107 in Key Stage 2 maths. That is a strong area-wide figure, and it holds across the district rather than resting on one star school. The primaries range from Lansbury Lawrence Primary School, in the post-war heart of Poplar, down to Cubitt Town Primary School and Seven Mills Primary School on the Isle of Dogs, so families in Millwall and Cubitt Town have local schools without crossing the district. Around here, the arithmetic at ten is in better shape than the house prices.
The four mainstream state secondaries in the area produce a pupil-weighted Attainment 8 score of about 41, the average of a pupil's results across eight subjects. Langdon Park Community School serves the north of the district, and Canary Wharf College Crossharbour is one of three schools around here named after the office district next door. Four secondaries against 22 primaries means the choice that looks generous when a child starts school narrows a long way by the time they move up.
Ofsted's grades are counted across Tower Hamlets as a whole: the borough has 37 good or outstanding settings out of 39 graded, almost all of them. Thirteen are outstanding, two require improvement and none is inadequate. A further 44 settings in the borough have no published grade yet, which makes them unknown rather than poor. In a borough this size, outstanding schools outnumber struggling ones thirteen to two.
Places are allocated under the council's published admissions rules, so living near a school does not secure a place, and parents should read the criteria for their chosen school before they pick a flat by its distance from the gate. A flat that overlooks the playground can still come with a bus pass and a place somewhere else. The rules are published, and they are applied without sentiment.
Schools are where Poplar overdelivers. The primaries are strong across the district and the borough's inspection record backs them up, so the only real fight is over who gets in.