Again anecdotal, but my experience was that state schools had BBC Micros but private schools and many technology-focused colleges had AppleIIs. Apples were very expensive. I remember helping out at a technology college night class where people were being taught Logo programming (and later Pascal). It was the first time I'd seen more than one ApppleII in a room at a time (this class had a doze or so, two people to machine).
I could have typed that better for sure. I had meant to say that Apples were not common anywhere in the UK but the places I had seen some were in tech colleges and private schools which it seems would fit with your experience too.
