Parents are paying ‘premiums’ of on average £77,000 to buy homes near leading state schools, research out today suggests.
Property prices within sought-after catchment areas are 35 per cent higher than in the rest of the UK, with an average asking price of £298,378.
The most expensive catchment area of a state school in Britain’s top ten surrounds all-girls grammar Henrietta Barnett, in Barnet, north-west London, where the average house price is £655,429.
The premiums have soared from an average of £20,000 in just four years.
And rent in the catchment areas of the top 50 state schools – at an average of £944 a month – is 7.8 per cent higher than in the rest of the country.
For the catchment areas of six of them, rental prices are as high as £1,500 a month. But the premiums are still cheaper than most private school fees, which can top £30,000 a year.
The research is likely to reignite the bitter row over school ‘selection by mortgage’ rather than ability. The phenomenon has prompted some councils to adopt controversial lotteries – effectively picking names from a hat – to give children from poorer homes an equal chance of getting a place at a top school.
The research is based on average asking prices in July this year and GCSE results taken from 2010.
It shows a handful of the top schools are in areas with typical house prices more than twice the national average of £221,110.
These include St Olave’s and St Saviour’s Grammar in Orpington, Kent, ranked second in the UK, where house prices average £592,471.
Notably, house prices in the area around the top-rated Bishop Wordsworth’s Grammar, in Salisbury, are just below the average for leading schools at £286,112.
The first 24 ‘free schools’ are to receive £130million between them from the Government to cover their start-up costs this year.
Among those getting state backing is the Maharishi School, in Ormskirk, Lancashire, where children as young as four will be given meditation classes.