Westminster's schools are very good, across the board. Every school the inspectors have graded in the borough is good or outstanding. More than a third of those are outstanding. Nothing is rated below good. The hard part for a family here is getting a place, because finding a good school takes no effort at all.
Ofsted has graded 25 schools and settings across the City of Westminster, and all 25 come out good or outstanding, which is a clean sweep. Nine are outstanding and 16 good, with none requiring improvement and none inadequate. Another 18 settings in the borough hold no published overall grade yet. The figures describe the whole authority, from Pimlico to Paddington, and they are the record a parent here is choosing within. A borough that runs Parliament's back yard turns out to keep its own classrooms in better order.
Getting in is a separate matter. Westminster City Council allocates places through its published admissions rules, so living round the corner from a school you like does not on its own put your child in it, and several of the nearby schools are church schools that apply faith criteria on top. Distance still helps, and the distances are short: the Department for Transport's modelled times from 2019 put the nearest primary about 4 minutes' walk away and the nearest secondary about 7 minutes by public transport. Families counting on a church school should read that school's own admissions policy, including how it weighs worship and attendance, a full year ahead of the application deadline. Short walks and long waiting lists are the local combination.
The schools close to home show the mix. Burdett-Coutts and Townshend Foundation CofE Primary School and St Vincent De Paul Catholic Primary School are two of the primaries, both church schools, while Millbank Gardens Primary Academy takes its name from the stretch of river by Parliament. For older children, The Grey Coat Hospital and Westminster City School are the nearest state secondaries, and Harris Westminster Sixth Form handles the last two years. Then there is the fee-paying layer that only this part of London has, led by Westminster School, which grew out of the abbey itself, along with choir schools attached to both Westminster Abbey and Westminster Cathedral. A borough where two choir schools sit a short walk apart, serving rival cathedrals of song, is not short of options on Sunday morning either.
The private schools are a world of their own, with entry tests and fees that bear no relation to Ofsted's state-school grades, and families should keep the two lists apart when they compare. Most children in the area go through the state system, and on the evidence of Westminster's inspections that system is the least of a parent's worries here. The parents who stay up at night over Westminster's schools are worrying about admissions, and the classrooms give them little reason to.
Schools are one of Westminster's real strengths: every graded school in the borough clears the bar, and the only thing standing between a family and a good one is the admissions form.