Schools are one of Tewkesbury's real strengths. Nearly nine in ten graded schools across the county are rated good or better. The typical walk to a primary school is a few minutes. There is one secondary school in town, so families don't spend much time deciding.
Ofsted has graded 156 schools across Gloucestershire, and 136 of them are good or outstanding, close to nine in ten. Nine are outstanding, 19 require improvement and one is inadequate. Another 95 settings have no published grade yet and are left out of those counts. The county figure includes Cheltenham and Gloucester as well as Tewkesbury, so it describes the county's schools, not this town's own.
Primary school is where Tewkesbury makes life easy. The Department for Transport's modelled journey times from 2019 put the nearest primary about 7 minutes' walk away for a typical home, or about 7 minutes by car. The town has Tewkesbury Church of England Primary School, The John Moore Primary School, Mitton Manor Primary School, Tirlebrook Primary School and Carrant Brook Junior School. Northway Infant School serves the suburb across the motorway, and Twyning School serves the village to the north. Gloucestershire County Council allocates places under its published admission rules, and living near a school does not by itself get your child a place there. Most families here will find a primary within reach, though which one they get is up to the council.
Secondary school means one name: Tewkesbury Academy. The 2019 modelled times put the nearest secondary about 32 minutes' walk from a typical home, about 23 minutes by public transport and about 11 minutes by car. Alderman Knight School and Bredon School appear in the area's list of other schools, and OneSchool Global UK has a Tewkesbury campus. None of them is a mainstream secondary option for most families, so for most children in town the secondary decision makes itself.
The county border makes school applications more complicated. Bushley, Ripple and Longdon are on the Worcestershire side, and the first schools at Bredon and Overbury are in that county too. If the house is in one of those villages, find out which county council handles your application and how its school ages and stages line up with the Gloucestershire schools you were expecting. A family that crosses the Carrant Brook without checking may find the sums for year 7 were done in the wrong county.
Schools in Tewkesbury are one of the reasons to move here. Primary schools are close, the county has plenty of good ones, and the only real limit is a single secondary choice.