The schools are the best thing about Walthamstow. The borough's inspection record is close to spotless. Primary results come in above the expected standard. The secondaries do solid work. Plenty of people move here for the trains and stay because of the school their child got into.
Around Walthamstow there are 23 state primaries, and their pupils average about 107 on the Key Stage 2 maths test. The test is scaled so that 100 marks the expected standard. Henry Maynard Primary School and Walthamstow Primary Academy are two of the names on the local list, and the second shares the town's name. Most of the others sit on streets of Edwardian terraces, so the walk to school is short. On test results, the primaries hold their own.
The area has eight mainstream state secondaries, and their pupils average an Attainment 8 score of about 48 across their best eight subjects. Walthamstow School for Girls is the obvious name, and any family with a son crosses it off before the open-evening season begins. Walthamstow Academy, Willowfield School and Kelmscott School cover the rest of the town, and Sir George Monoux College takes students at sixth-form age. Results at that level are respectable more than spectacular. That still counts for something when the primaries have set the bar this high.
Ofsted has graded 23 of the 25 schools it covers in Waltham Forest as good or better, so almost all of them. Seven of those are outstanding, two require improvement, and none is inadequate. Another 46 settings in the borough have no published grade yet, which tells you nothing either way. A borough where two schools have something to fix and none has been called failing is a good place to start a school search.
A school place depends on Waltham Forest Council's published admissions rules. Every application goes through the same process, so owning the house on the corner doesn't put a child at the front of the queue. The council publishes how far from each school its last successful applicant lived, and that distance is worth checking against the specific house you want. Walthamstow's terraces are close enough together that a few streets can change the answer.
For a buyer with children, schools are where Walthamstow is strongest, and they are the reason a family might put up with the price of a terrace.