The primary schools are the best reason to raise children in Upper Holloway. Nearly every school Ofsted has graded in Islington is good or better. Seven are outstanding. The local primaries post strong maths results. The secondary picture is thinner, because it mostly comes down to one school.
There are seven mainstream state primaries in the area, and their pupils' average Key Stage 2 maths score is about 106, comfortably above the expected standard. St John's Upper Holloway CofE Primary School is the one that carries the area's name. Duncombe Primary School and St Joseph's Catholic Primary School are among the others. Church schools such as St John's and St Joseph's often set their own admissions criteria, and some give priority on faith grounds. Find out which rules apply to the school you want, because a church primary can turn down the family across the road.
City of London Academy, Highgate Hill is the one mainstream state secondary counted in the area, and its pupil-weighted Attainment 8 score is about 40. With only one school in the count, that figure is that school's result, and families here are judging a single building rather than an average across several. The name puts the City and Highgate on the sign, and the pupils come mostly from Upper Holloway.
Across Islington, the authority this count covers, Ofsted has graded 24 of 25 schools good or better, which is almost all of them. Seven of those are outstanding. None is rated requires improvement, and one is inadequate. A further 32 settings in the borough have no published grade yet. That says nothing about their quality, only that Ofsted has not yet published a grade.
Islington allocates places under its published admissions rules, and church schools apply their own criteria on top. Living a few doors from St John's or Duncombe does not secure a place at either, however short the walk to the gate. Ask the council for last year's allocation pattern for the schools you care about, and do it while you are still choosing streets. In a borough where almost every graded school is good or better, parents end up competing over which good school, and the allocation rules don't care how much they paid to be close to it.
Schools are one of Upper Holloway's real strengths. The primaries carry most of that, and the single local secondary carries the rest.