Watford's schools are good, and the town makes its ten-year-olds sit an exam to find out how good. The primaries test above the expected standard. Nearly nine in ten graded schools across the county are good or better. The secondary system is partly selective, so the test sets the tone for the whole of Year 6. The schools are the easy part; getting into them is the work.
There are six mainstream state primaries in the area, and their pupils average about 104 in the Key Stage 2 maths test. Names like Cassiobury Junior School, Nascot Wood Junior School and Central Primary School turn up on parents' shortlists, and they sit among streets of very different prices, so the primary on the corner is part of what the house costs. St Mary's National Schools, the town's old elementary schools in Church Street, closed in 1922 and the site became a car park, the town's most candid comment on the school run.
Hertfordshire County Council is the authority Ofsted grades against, and across that whole county 203 of 227 graded schools are good or better, nine in ten near enough. Forty are outstanding, 21 require improvement and three are inadequate. Those are county numbers, and a classroom in Watford gets no credit for a good inspection in another district.
The secondary picture is where the town gets particular. Every state secondary in Hertfordshire is comprehensive on paper, though the south-west corner around Watford runs partly selective schools, Watford Grammar School for Boys and Watford Grammar School for Girls among them, with common tests in maths and non-verbal reasoning set each autumn. Queens' School and one other nearby secondary require all applicants to sit the same tests, so most Year 6 children in the area take them whether or not they want a selective place. Places are allocated by the council's published admissions rules, so a house round the corner from a school secures nothing on its own, and the area has had the highest rate in the county of children sent to a school their parents never applied for. The test deadlines come round faster than people expect, so the date to find out early is the registration date, from the schools themselves.
The grammar schools have been at this a while. They started as the Watford Endowed Schools, funded from the old free school's money after it closed in 1882, and moved to their present sites in 1907 and 1912. After sixteen, West Herts College has its Watford campus in town, and a 2011 Ofsted report rated it the only grade 1 further education college in the United Kingdom. That report is fifteen years old, which is long enough for any reputation to need a fresh inspection.
For a family, Watford's schools are one of its best points, provided the parents are ready to treat Year 6 as an admissions campaign with a nine-year-old as the candidate.