The schools around Princes Risborough are good, and the county they belong to makes them better. Most of Buckinghamshire's graded schools are rated good or outstanding. The nearest primary is a short walk. The town's own secondary carries its name. Parents here spend more time on the walk to school than on the worry about it.
Buckinghamshire has 94 schools holding a published overall Ofsted grade, and 80 of them are rated good or outstanding, which is a little over eight in every ten. Nineteen are outstanding and 61 good, while 11 require improvement and 3 are inadequate. Those counts cover the whole of Buckinghamshire, from High Wycombe to Aylesbury, so they describe the system the town's children are part of. The grade of any one school is a separate question, and the published inspection report answers it. Another 94 settings have no published grade yet and are counted in neither column.
The schools that matter most to a buyer in the town are Princes Risborough Primary School and Princes Risborough School, the secondary. Monks Risborough CofE Primary School serves the village to the east, Longwick Church of England Combined School the flatter ground to the north-west, and up in the hills Lacey Green and Speen have small church primaries of their own. Buckinghamshire Council allocates places under its published admissions rules, so a house near any of these schools brings no promise of a place there, and the council's allocation figures for the school a buyer wants are worth reading long before the forms are due. A town whose name is on both the primary and the secondary has, at least, made the shortlist easy to spell.
On the Department for Transport's modelled journey times from 2019, the nearest primary is about 13 minutes' walk from the average home, or about 8 minutes by car. The nearest secondary is about 31 minutes on foot, 22 by public transport and 11 by car. Children who strolled to primary find out at eleven that the walk to big school takes half an hour. The bus figures in those times are older than the current timetable, and bus routes have been cut in plenty of places since 2019.
One nearby school that some older guides still list has closed and is no longer an option.
Schools are one of the town's real strengths. The county sets a high bar, the town has its own primary and secondary, and the village schools on the hill fill the gaps.