Welling's schools are good, and most families here have several decent options in walking distance. Five in every six graded schools across the borough are good or outstanding. The nearest primary is a short walk for most homes. The town has both a grammar school and a comprehensive with its own name on the door. The real question is which school you get a place at, because there are plenty of good ones to choose from.
Ofsted has graded 36 schools in the London Borough of Bexley, and 30 of them are good or outstanding, which is about five in six. Five are outstanding, five require improvement and one is inadequate. Another 39 settings across Bexley have no published grade yet, so they say nothing either way. These counts are for the whole borough, not Welling alone. On the Department for Transport's 2019 modelled journey times, the average home in Welling is about seven minutes' walk from a primary school and about fourteen from a secondary.
The names say a lot about the town. East Wickham Primary Academy and St Michael's East Wickham Church of England Primary School carry the name of the old parish to the north. Foster's Primary School shares its name with the listed former school building on Upper Wickham Lane, which is now flats. At secondary level there is Welling School, and Bexley Grammar School is the selective option, with an entrance test. Bexley Council allocates places under its published admissions rules, which take in distance, siblings and, for church and grammar schools, their own criteria, so living near a school does not secure a place there. Harris Academy Falconwood serves the western side of town. Each year's allocation is published by the council, so look up how far from the gate the last child offered a place lived. That distance tells you more than any brochure. Particulars that say "within catchment" are describing a line nobody at the council has actually drawn.
The schools are one of Welling's real strengths: the borough's results are strong, there are good options at both primary and secondary level, and the main work for parents is the admissions form.