Benington Church of England Primary School

About Benington Church of England Primary School

Benington Church of England Primary School is a small state primary in East Hertfordshire that parents clearly want to get into. For the 2025/26 intake, the school received 45 applications for just 16 places, giving an oversubscription ratio of 2.81. Of those, 18 families put it as their first preference, and all 16 first-preference applicants were offered a place. That level of demand suggests a strong local reputation, though the school doesn't publish a parent-view survey or recommend percentage to back that up directly. The school is rated Good by Ofsted following an ungraded inspection in June 2024, which confirmed it 'remains Good' — the same rating it held in its previous graded inspection in 2018. Headteacher Anja Tyler leads a school of 100 pupils, with capacity for 112, so there's a little breathing room. Only 6% of pupils are eligible for free school meals, well below the national average.

Academically, the picture is mixed. At Key Stage 2 in 2023/24, just 18% of pupils reached the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined — far below the Hertfordshire local authority average of 64%. The school's ranking reflects this: it sits at the bottom of the 47 schools in East Hertfordshire on this measure, and in the bottom 1% nationally. Digging into the individual subjects, 82% hit the expected standard in writing, which is solid, but only 36% did so in reading and 64% in maths. At the higher standard, results were low across the board: 18% in maths, 18% in writing, and just 9% in reading. Average scores tell a similar story — 103 in maths but only 100 in reading. There are no progress scores available, so it's hard to say how much value the school adds from pupils' starting points.

The school offers a decent range of facilities for its size, including a library, dining hall, sensory room, forest school, playing fields, outdoor playground and a chapel. Sports provision covers football, tennis, netball, rounders and cross country, while clubs include drama, choir, coding, book club and gardening. SEND support is well-documented, with provisions for specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, moderate learning difficulty, social emotional and mental health needs, speech language and communication needs, physical disability and autistic spectrum disorder. This is a Church of England school, so it will have a religious character woven into daily life, though the data doesn't specify how strongly. For families who value a small, oversubscribed village primary with strong SEND support and a forest school, Benington is worth a look — just be aware that academic outcomes at KS2 are significantly below the local average.

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