Solid, and slightly more competitive than a city this size ought to be. Six state primaries serve the area, all feeding essentially one state secondary. There is also a private school older than the Norman Conquest sitting in the middle of town, which changes the local conversation whether you can afford it or not. Primary results land right on the national average. Secondary results land a shade below.
At Key Stage 2, the six mainstream state primaries in the area average about 101 on the maths scaled score, which is the definition of on-track. Stoberry Park School and St Cuthbert's Church of England Junior School are the two names most Wells parents end up weighing against each other, with St Cuthbert's infant and pre-school phase feeding in beneath it. St Joseph and St Teresa Catholic Primary School covers the faith option in the city, and the surrounding villages carry their own small primaries for anyone buying out towards Coxley, Wookey or Horrington. Village primaries have the advantages and the drawbacks village primaries always have: everybody knows your child, including on the days you would rather they did not.
Secondary is simpler, because there is one. The Blue School, founded in 1641, is the state comprehensive for the area, and its Attainment 8 score sits at about 50, which is a little under the national benchmark of 50 without being a cause for alarm. The absence of choice is the more important fact. In most towns a disappointing secondary means a longer drive; here it means moving. Set against that, Wells Cathedral School, founded in 909 and one of the country's established specialist music schools, teaches around 700 pupils from ages three to eighteen, and its boarding houses line the northern edge of the city. It is private, and its fees are not something this page can quantify, but its presence is why the city has more musicians walking about with instrument cases than a place this size can reasonably explain.
The Ofsted picture is only available across the whole of Somerset, not for Wells on its own, so read it as county weather. Of the 140 settings with a published overall effectiveness grade, 101 are good or better, which is roughly seven in ten, with five rated outstanding. On the other side, 32 sit at requires improvement and seven at inadequate. That is a county with real variation rather than a uniformly strong one, and it is the reason local parents actually research rather than assume. A further 81 settings hold no published grade yet, which tells you nothing about their quality in either direction.
Naming a school here is not the same as securing a place at it. Somerset allocates on its own published criteria, and distance does much of the work in a city this compact, which means two streets can produce two different outcomes without either family having done anything wrong. Check the current admissions arrangements and last year's actual allocation distances for the specific address before you let a school name influence what you offer on a house. Estate agents are enthusiastic about catchments in a way that admissions officers are not.
Schools are a decent reason to buy in Wells rather than a headline one: good primary provision, one respectable secondary and no plan B, plus a private option that raises the ceiling for the families who can reach it.