Middle classes pay up to be near good schools

The cost of property near the 50 best schools is 35 per cent higher than that in the rest of the UK, with the most expensive catchment area for a top state school found around the Henrietta Barnett School in north London.

The average price of homes near the secondary – judged outstanding in its latest Ofsted report – is £655,429.

Other state schools at the top of the house price league include St Olave’s and St Saviour’s Grammar School in Orpington, Kent – ranked as the second-best state school in the UK – as well as 10th-placed Queen Elizabeth’s School in north London, which both saw average asking prices within the catchment area exceed twice the national average.

Overall, the average asking price of a house near one of Britain’s top 50 state schools is £298,378 – 35 per cent higher than the UK average price of £221,110, said estate agent PrimeLocation.

For those unable to buy, the average monthly rent of £944 is 7.8 per cent higher in the catchment areas of the best state schools than in the UK as a whole.

Bucking the trend is the catchment area around the top state school, Bishop Wordsworth’s in Salisbury, Wiltshire, where property costs on average £286,112, below the national mean.

A Department for Education spokesman said: “We are acutely aware that there are simply too few good school places in England meaning some parents have no choice but to send their children to poor schools.

“Low income families, who cannot buy their way into a good school either through buying a house in a good catchment area or by going private, are hit the hardest by this.

“That’s why we are raising standards by turning underperforming schools into academies.

“These are schools where teachers, not politicians or bureaucrats, are in charge. Academies are improving results at between two and three times the national average rate.”