Make the grade: family homes near top-performing London schools for less than £500k? Here's where to find them

The class of 2017 is setting out into the world with freshly minted A-level results and university or a first job in their sights.

Meanwhile, parents of younger children are facing the nail-biting schools’ admissions season as applications for places at senior school are made and results anxiously awaited.

Schools are the single biggest driver of family house moves, and properties within the catchment area of a top performer command substantial premiums.

But research by Homes & Property has found that it is — just — possible to buy a family-sized house close to a school that outperforms all its local rivals for less than £500,000.

A comparison of schools scoring the best A-level grades within their boroughs and the local price of a three-bedroom terrace house proves there are plenty of options out there for parents with small budgets but big ambitions.

Almost all the schools highlighted have “outstanding” Ofsted reports, as well as scoring well above average exam results.

Selective schools, of course, enjoy the highest marks but the comprehensive, faith and academy schools with lower grades all have rigorous academic standards and strong track records in improving all students’ attainment.

In many cases the compromise is a longish commute.

The fringes of Essex and Kent, east and south-east of central London, are an excellent hunting ground for great (and mostly selective) schools and affordable homes across the boroughs of Bexley, Barking & Dagenham and Bromley.

ORPINGTON

St Olave’s and St Saviour’s Grammar School tempts parents of brainy boys to Orpington in Bromley for its fantastic results (more students score an average A-level grade of A* than many of London’s private schools) and its affordable homes. An average terrace house, according to Rightmove, costs just under £415,000.

Great senior schools tend to operate alongside excellent feeder primaries, and St Olave’s is no exception. Farnborough Primary School is particularly sought after.

Commuters can be at London Bridge in just over half an hour, though its reputation as grey suburban sprawl is not misplaced. There are, however, some green shoots suggesting that Orpington is on the up. A new cinema opened last year, brightening up the town centre, and there are much-needed plans to pretty up Orpington’s market square, upgrade its stalls and hold an annual food festival.

Ivan Epps, director of Edmund Estate Agents, said families move from “all over London” to get their boys into St Olave’s — girls can try for the highly regarded Newstead Wood, a selective grammar school. “We find people move nearby just in the hope they will get a place,” he said.

Homes near the schools tend to be from the 1930s or 1950s, and if you need something larger than a terrace, then Epps estimates that a four-bedroom detached house would cost from around £700,000.

EAST HAM

For buyers who don’t want to venture out to London’s furthest-flung boroughs for a chance of a place at a top school, or don’t think the 11-plus is for them, then east London also has some excellent options.

Pupils at the ambitiously named London Academy of Excellence in Stratford achieved impressive average A-level results of B+, according to Ofsted, while Brampton Manor Academy in East Ham has an average grade of B. Both schools far outdo national and local averages.

Sandwiched between the mega regeneration zone at the Royal Docks at Canning Town and the former West Ham stadium at Upton Park, in the throes of being turned into an 842-home development of apartments, East Ham’s streets of period houses, tucked amid ugly post-war developments, currently look like good value for young families, with an average three-bedroom terrace selling for just over £380,000.

A £500,000 budget would buy a four- or five-bedroom period house, possibly in need of some TLC.

WHERE TO BUY FAMILY HOMES UNDER £500k

Source: Ofsted, Rightmove. Schools are mixed and non-selective unless otherwise stated.