Hiya, I live just outside Guildford and work in Cobham so know both areas quite well, although obviously not all the schools, there are hundreds ! My son is just going into Y1 and my daughter is going into Reception this year. You are right that Surrey's deadline is later this year, January I think, but I have to say that normally demand for places in the good schools is quite high, and so if you are a late applicant, the chances of getting your choice of schools is pretty slim unless you move very close to your first choice school and get in from the waiting list.
Cobham is a lovely area, really villagey but close enough to big towns etc to keep you both happy, it is very expensive though !! I have to say that there seem to be far more private schools in this area than state schools, and in fact might be a bit of a shaky choice if you are not sure if you might educate privately at secondary or not, there is a huge choice of private schools, but the state secondary schools are rather average. It is reasonably close to the grammar schools (Tiffins and Tiffins Girls Schools, and Sutton and Nonsuch). For state primaries, I have heard excellent things of the Royal Kent CofE school, and St Mathews is a very good primary too, there is some discussion as to whether it will go to a full primary school (rather than an infant school), I'm not sure what the status there is. St Andrews is rated outstanding I think, but has a bit of a mixed catchment area and probably not such a good local reputation, it would probably not be my choice.
Slightly further down the A3 there is Ripley which is a lovely little village with a good school (Ripley Church of England), however it's in a bit of a no-mans land for state secondarys.
In Guildford then good schools to aim for are Boxgrove, Onslow Infants (feeds Queen Eleanors Junior school, and Onslow Village is a nice area), Pewley Down (feeds Holy Trinity but not sure if this has independent admissions criteria - voluntary aided). The Burpham area of Guildford (so Boxgrove/Pewley Down etc) would feed George Abbott secondary school which the best state secondary in the area by some margin.
Other good schools in a 5 mile radius are Busbridge in Godalming, Pirbirght in Worplesdon (not sure which secondary this feeds, possibly Winston Churchill in Woking which is quite good - note, north Guildford is not renown for it's good state secondaries).
Farnham is a nice area, I have friends with children at Rowledge, I think there are lots of lovely little schools there and Weydon is a good state secondary.
Fleet is a bit further south but has fantastic schools, both primary and secondary and is a lovely part of the world, your money will go further house-wise too.
I think that's about all my knowledge, I don't think Woking is such a great area but good transport links to London.
If you are definitely set on private secondary I would probably recommend Cobham and the Royal Kent, or Guildford and try Pewley Down or Boxgrove (or Ripley), but if state secondary is possible then I'd definitely look to Fleet, or again for the Burpham side of Guildford.
I'm sure there are hundreds of other schools out there (look on rightmove or upmystreet), but my suggestions are based on local reputation etc, rather than purely stats/ofsted (I think they do well there too).
Helen xxx