Threefeethigh,
I would say that you should consider ALL schools in your local area and look at ALL the information you can find - read the Ofsted report in detail, particularly if you know you will 'need' something in particular out of a school (e.g. SEN provision, stretching of a G&T child - I needed both, for the same child).
Look at SATs - treat 'raw' SATs scores as a measure of the school's intake, as they are a reasonably reliable guide to whether the school is generally, as a PP put it, 'middle class and bright' [there is also a general introductory paragraph at the beginning of the Ofsted report that gives you this kind of information]. Look much more closely at CVA in SATs results, as they show what a school actually doies with your children. Note, though, that they only apply to progress between end of KS1 and end of KS2 and give no information at all about what happens in the infants. A school which works exceptionally hard to get children from below expectations to above expectations in the infants, and then maintains them at above expectations will bizarrely get a lower CVA than a school which does nothing whatever in the infants but then gets their children from below expections to on expectations in juiniors! Also, don't obsess about small differences in CVA - 96 would be poor, for example, and 104 excellent, but there is no significant difference between, say, 99.7 and 100.3.
Look at historical data on SATs and Ofsted reports - is this a school that is 'satisfactory but rapidly improving', has it bumbled along between satisfactory and Special measures for a number of years, or has it declined from Outstanding to satisfactory? (I'd race to the first school, btw). You can also find the head's name on all reports - it can help you to track which schools have recently had a chabge of head for good or ill.
If you live locally, listen to school gate gossip BUT be aware that the 'on the street' reputation of a school takes a very long time to change. My children's school was, until the 1970s, a 3-16 school where the 11-16 part was a secondary modern. It is STILL, 30 years on, regarded quite baselessly as 'less academic' than another primary which used to be a 'feeder' for the grammar school... (probably doesn't help that one school has a 'wear school colours' uniform, and the other has shirts, ties and compulsory logo-ed jumpers and coats - 'it must be a better school, the children look so smart'!). Try to speak to a current parent from every school you are seriously considering - schools may well be happy to put you in touch with someone.
Then visit, visit, visit. Be REALLY nosy when you visit - ask questions like 'I saw that you were Satisfactory in your last ofsted and it identified x,y and z as areas to improve - can you show me what you have done to address that?' (when I asked the head of an 'Outstanding' primary what he thought helped him to keep this rating and he started talking about how he worked on 'excluding the riff raff' I knew that my children weren't going there!). Look at displays. Are they recent? What is the children's writing like? Linger in classes as you are shown round - is the teaching dynamic? Are the children on task? Would YOU like to be part of the lesson? How do the children move around the school / out to break / queue for lunch? They may be cheerful, bouncy, excitable, but are they also polite, reasonably orderly and friendly towards one another?