Very good, and the borough knows it. Almost every graded school is good or better. The primaries post strong maths scores. The secondaries do better still. Schools are the reason a lot of families pay Sutton prices.
The primaries set a high bar. The four mainstream state primaries in the area average about 111 in the Key Stage 2 maths test, a score most parts of the country would put on a banner. All Saints Benhilton CofE Primary sits under the Gothic Revival church in Benhilton, and Westbourne Primary and Manor Park Primary Academy serve the town further south. Then there are Robin Hood Infants' and Robin Hood Junior, two schools named after a man famous for taking from the rich, in a town where the rich now queue to get in.
The secondary picture is stronger again. The two mainstream state secondaries in the area post a pupil-weighted Attainment 8 score of about 65 at GCSE. Sutton Grammar School, which opened in 1899 as Sutton County Grammar, selects boys by exam. Greenshaw High School, named after the woods in Rose Hill Park East, takes the comprehensive route on the north side of town. Sutton High School, founded in 1884 for girls, is the fee-paying option. Families who chose a house for the grammar school and only later read how its entrance test works tend to have a long autumn.
Ofsted has graded 28 schools and settings across the London Borough of Sutton, and 27 of them are good or better, nearly all of them. Nine are rated outstanding, one requires improvement and none is inadequate. A further 25 have no published grade yet, which says nothing either way about how they are doing. In a borough this strong, parents learn the word "outstanding" early and then struggle to settle for "good".
Proximity helps less than buyers hope. Places at every state school here are handed out under the council's published admissions rules, and for Sutton Grammar the exam comes first, so a house a short walk from the gate buys you a shorter walk and nothing more on paper. The Department for Transport modelled the walk to the nearest primary at about eight minutes and to the nearest secondary at about 14, using 2019 figures, so most homes are close to something good. Read each school's admissions policy for the year your child applies and check how far its last offer reached.
Schools are the strongest part of the Sutton case. Plenty of families move here for them and stay for good, and it is hard to fault them.