Dovelands Primary School

About Dovelands Primary School

Dovelands Primary School in Leicester was rated Good by Ofsted at its most recent graded inspection in 2016, and a subsequent ungraded inspection in 2022 confirmed the school remains Good. The most telling exam metric for this primary is the proportion of pupils reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined, which sits at 58%. That is four percentage points below the Leicester local authority average of 62%, placing Dovelands 42nd out of 68 primary schools in the area. The school’s national percentile ranking of 60.6 puts it in the bottom half of all primaries in England. While the combined figure is below par, individual subject results are more mixed: 73% of pupils met the expected standard in reading, 75% in writing, and 66% in maths. The average scaled scores in reading (104) and maths (103) are both slightly above the national baseline of 100.

Looking at higher attainment, the picture is similar. Only 7% of pupils achieved the higher standard in reading, writing and maths combined, and just 7% did so in writing individually. Reading and maths fared better, with 27% and 23% hitting the higher threshold respectively. The school has made clear progress since its previous inspection in 2014, when it was rated Requires Improvement overall, with leadership and management and early years provision both graded as Requires Improvement at that time. In the 2016 inspection that lifted the school to Good, leadership and management and early years provision were both upgraded to Good, and the school has held that rating across both subsequent inspections. With 537 pupils on roll against a capacity of 525, the school is slightly oversubscribed.

Dovelands offers a nursery provision for children from age three and caters for a mixed cohort up to Year 6. The school is oversubscribed: for the 2025/26 intake, there were 134 applications for 68 places, with 61 first-preference offers made. Facilities include an outdoor playground, playing fields, a library, art studios and a chapel. Sports on offer include football, rounders, dance and cricket, while clubs cover coding, choir and gardening. The school has a notably broad range of SEND provisions, covering nine categories including dyslexia, moderate learning difficulty, social and emotional mental health, speech and language needs, hearing and visual impairments, multi-sensory impairment, physical disability and autistic spectrum disorder. This makes it a practical choice for families whose children have identified special educational needs, particularly given the range of support on offer.

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