Primary schools across the East Midlands helped thousands of children start their educational journey on the right foot in the last school year.
The government’s latest preliminary performance figures for state-funded primary schools were released this week, a week after it published delayed performance figures for secondary schools. From this new data, we’ve created a league table ranking how state primary schools did across all of the East Midlands.
It is primarily based on the percentage of each school’s pupils who completed Year 6 in the 2023-24 academic year, who met the government’s expected standards in three essential school skills: reading, writing and maths. All schools included on the list had at least 90% of their pupils hit this target.
This gave many smaller village and community schools the chance to shine, while also allowing larger primary schools in centres like Leicester and Nottingham - typically with many more pupils to consider - to prove they too can help most of them excel.
Each school included also had an overall Ofsted rating of ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ before this measure was recently dropped, or, if they’ve been inspected more recently, had at least ‘good’ grades across the board. This means that the quality of education provided, student behaviour and attitudes, school leadership and management and student safeguarding were all found to meet or exceed government standards last time the school was inspected.
Here were 30 primary schools from across the East Midlands that topped our list:
5. Quadring Cowley & Brown's Primary School
This is a primary school in Quadring, Lincolnshire, with about 107 pupils. It was formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 100% of its pupils also met the government’s expected standard in reading, writing and maths - compared to averages of 57% locally and 61% nationally. | Google
6. Redhill Primary School
Redhill is a primary school in Ockbrook, Derbyshire, with about 216 pupils. It was formerly rated ‘outstanding’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 100% of its pupils also met the government’s expected standard in reading, writing and maths - compared to averages of 58% locally and 61% nationally. | Google
7. Swithland St Leonard's Church of England Primary School
St Leonard’s is an Anglican primary school in Swithland, Leicestershire, with about 85 pupils. It was formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 100% of its pupils met the government’s expected standard in reading, writing and maths - compared to averages of 61% both locally and nationally. | Google
8. Wessington Primary School
This is another village primary school, in Wessington, Derbyshire. It has about 85 pupils, and was formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 100% of its pupils once again met the government’s expected standard in reading, writing and maths - compared to averages of 58% locally and 61% nationally. | Google