The schools in South Lambeth are good, and the primaries are better than the price of a family flat here would lead you to expect. Most schools across the borough are rated good or better. About one in four is outstanding. The local primaries test above the expected standard in maths. In South Lambeth the hard part of raising a family is finding a third bedroom, and the school is the easy bit.
There are 8 mainstream state primaries in the area, and their key stage 2 maths results average about 103, above the expected standard. Wyvil Primary is the one that stands out on paper, because it runs specialist resource bases for children with speech, language and communication needs and for autism. Few primaries have those, and they are worth knowing about if your child needs one. Herbert Morrison Primary, St Stephen's Church of England Primary and a Roman Catholic primary are also among the local options, so you can choose between church and community schools without leaving the district. Most children here are walked to school from a flat, and the buggy goes in the lift.
Ofsted has graded 41 schools and settings across Lambeth, the whole borough and not only this corner of it, and 35 of them are rated good or better. That is about six in seven. Eleven are outstanding, five require improvement and one is inadequate. Another 32 settings in the borough have no published grade yet, which tells you only that Ofsted hasn't been round. One inadequate school in 41 is the figure an anxious parent will remember, and the other 35 are what most children will actually attend.
Places are given out under the council's published admissions rules, and church schools such as St Stephen's also set their own faith criteria, so living near a school does not mean your child gets in. Each school's admissions policy shows how far its last offer reached and which criteria came first, and that is the document to read before you choose a street for a school. In a district this densely packed with flats, a few hundred metres can cover a lot of families competing for one reception class. The council decides who gets in, and moving closer only helps so far.
For a district where most people rent and young families are a minority, the schools are a real strength. A family that can find the space will be well served by the schools nearby.