Stroud's schools are a real strength, and the choice at eleven is wider than a town this size usually gets. The primaries around town score above the usual mark in maths. Two of the three secondaries in the town select by test. The third takes everyone and teaches through to eighteen. Most families here pick a house for the hills and find the schools were the better bargain.
There are 19 mainstream state primaries in the area, and their pupils average about 105 on the end-of-primary maths test. Stroud Valley Community Primary School is the one carrying the town's name, with Rodborough Community Primary School, Uplands Community Primary School and Callowell Primary School among the others spread across the valley sides. The bar has risen since 1576, when Stroud's schoolmaster was dismissed for teaching without a licence and failing to teach the catechism.
The area's five mainstream state secondaries average about 48 on the Attainment 8 measure, weighted by pupil numbers. Marling School, founded in 1889, and Stroud High School, which began in 1904 as a girls' school, stayed grammar schools long after most of England went comprehensive. Both became academies in 2011. Archway School is the county-maintained comprehensive for Stroud, Rodborough and Cainscross, taking pupils from eleven to eighteen. The town argued about its grammar schools for decades and kept them, and its eleven-year-olds have been sitting the entrance test ever since.
Across Gloucestershire, Ofsted has graded 136 of 156 settings good or better, which is close to nine in ten. Nine of those are outstanding, 19 require improvement and one is inadequate. Another 95 settings in the county hold no published grade yet. Those counts cover the whole county, from Stroud's valleys to the far end of the Forest, so they show what the authority runs overall and say little about any single school.
Gloucestershire County Council allocates places using its published admissions rules, and the two selective schools add a test on top, so buying a house near Marling or Stroud High gets you a short walk to the gate and nothing more. A home next door to a grammar school only helps if your child passes the exam. Look up the council's admissions rules for the year your child would start, and check the registration deadline for the selective test, which comes round sooner than most parents expect.
Stroud's schools are one of the best reasons to live here: strong primaries, a genuine choice at secondary, and a county record that is mostly good or better.