Royston's schools are strong, and the county system around them is stronger. Nine in ten of Hertfordshire's graded schools are good or better. The town's primaries test a little above the expected standard. The secondary results are middling. Most families here get a good start, and the secondary years ask more of the parents.
Around Royston, 6 mainstream state primaries averaged about 103 in Key Stage 2 maths, slightly above the standard the tests are built around. Several of them are first schools, including Icknield Walk First School, Studlands Rise First School and Therfield First School out on the chalk ridge. Royston runs a three-tier system, so children change school earlier than in most of the county. Parents who grew up with primary and secondary only find this out at the school gate.
There are 2 mainstream state secondaries in the area, and their pupils averaged about 44 on Attainment 8, the measure built from a pupil's best eight GCSE results. King James Academy Royston is the one carrying the town's name. Over the county line, Bassingbourn Village College and Melbourn Village College serve the Cambridgeshire end of the postcode, around Litlington, Whaddon and the Mordens. A score of 44 sits in the comfortable middle. The early years are the stronger part of a Royston education, and the later ones need a bit more attention from home.
Ofsted has graded 227 schools across Hertfordshire, and 203 of them are good or outstanding, which is nearly nine in ten. Of those, 40 are outstanding, 21 require improvement and 3 are inadequate. These are county-wide counts, and they describe the system a Royston child joins. They do little to rank the handful of schools a child here will attend. The three inadequate schools are a small number, and families at those schools will take little comfort from the other 224.
Places are allocated under the published admissions rules of whichever county council covers the address, and Royston straddles two counties. A house in Royston and a house in Thriplow can be close on the map but fall under different rules. Living near King James Academy Royston or Roman Way Academy does not secure a place at either. It is worth checking which council's admissions round covers the house, and which school the first school usually feeds into, because in a three-tier town that second move is the one parents tend to forget about. The county line runs closer to the A505 than most buyers expect.
The schools are one of Royston's real strengths: the early years are well served, the county system around them is among the better ones, and the secondary results are steady enough to let parents sleep.