Barham Primary School

About Barham Primary School

Barham Primary School is a large state primary in the London borough of Brent, led by headteacher Georgina Nutton. It caters for 926 pupils aged 3 to 11, operating very close to its full capacity of 930. In Brent’s primary school landscape, Barham sits 19th out of 52 schools on the key stage 2 expected standard measure, placing it in the top half of the local authority. The three highest-ranked primaries in the borough are East Lane Primary School, St Joseph’s Roman Catholic Primary School, and Ark Franklin Primary Academy, all of which sit ahead of Barham in the local rankings. The school’s most recent Ofsted inspection, an ungraded visit in 2025, confirmed that standards are being maintained at Good overall. Notably, its early years provision was rated Outstanding in that inspection, a step up from the Good (grade 2) it received in its previous graded inspection back in 2016. Leadership and management also remain Good.

Academically, Barham’s key stage 2 results for 2023/24 show a mixed picture. The proportion of pupils reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined was 72%, which is above the Brent local authority average of 65%. However, the school’s ranking on this metric places it 19th in Brent and 722nd in London. In individual subjects, maths was a relative strength: 84% of pupils met the expected standard and the average scaled score was 108, with 38% achieving the higher standard. Reading was slightly weaker, with 79% at expected and an average score of 106. Writing saw 79% at expected but only 10% at the higher standard. Progress scores are not available for any subject, so it is difficult to gauge how much value the school adds relative to pupils’ starting points. The proportion of pupils reaching the higher standard across all three subjects was just 8%, which is notably low.

The school is oversubscribed: for 2025/26 entry, it received 238 applications for 120 places, with 123 first-preference applications and 115 first-preference offers. Facilities include a sports hall, playing fields, a library, an ICT suite and a dining hall, plus a chapel. Sports on offer include swimming, tennis, athletics, cricket and football, while clubs range from coding and choir to gardening and drama. Barham’s SEND provisions are broad, covering specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, moderate learning difficulty, speech and language needs, hearing impairment, physical disability and autistic spectrum disorder. Parent View responses, based on 23 respondents, were notably divided: 61% would recommend the school, but 39% would not. Strong disagreement was high on several questions, including concerns being dealt with properly (26% strongly disagreed) and clubs and activities (30% strongly disagreed). This suggests that while the school performs solidly on attainment and is popular at admissions, parental satisfaction is far from universal.

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