Grasmere Primary School

About Grasmere Primary School

Grasmere Primary School holds a Good rating from Ofsted, a grade it has maintained since its most recent graded inspection in 2012 and confirmed in an ungraded visit in 2022. The school’s most telling academic metric is its Key Stage 2 performance in reading, writing and maths combined. In the 2023/24 academic year, 67% of pupils met the expected standard across all three subjects. That figure sits below the Hackney local authority average of 74%, placing Grasmere 39th out of 49 primary schools in the borough. The school’s national percentile ranking of 40th puts it in the middle of the pack nationally. While the headline combined figure is modest, individual subject results tell a slightly different story: 75% of pupils reached the expected standard in writing, and 71% did so in both reading and maths. The proportion reaching the higher standard in any single subject was low, with writing the strongest at 29%.

Average scaled scores in reading and maths both came in at 103, exactly in line with the national average. The school does not publish progress scores for any of the three core subjects, so it is not possible to say how much value the school adds relative to pupils’ starting points. Ofsted’s 2012 graded inspection rated leadership and management, early years provision and overall effectiveness all as Good, though the breakdown from that inspection is now over a decade old. The 2022 ungraded inspection simply confirmed the school remains Good, without issuing fresh graded judgements for individual categories. For parents focused on raw attainment, the data suggests a school that performs around the national average in reading and maths but falls short of the strong local benchmark set by Hackney’s top primaries.

Grasmere is a three-form entry primary with nursery provision for children aged three and above. It is heavily oversubscribed: for 29 places in the 2025/26 intake, there were 185 applications, giving an oversubscription ratio of 6.38. Only 16 first-preference offers were made from 28 first-preference applications, so securing a place is competitive. The school’s facilities include an ICT suite, sports hall, sensory room, art studios and a gymnasium, plus a chapel. Sports on offer include gymnastics, cricket, rounders, dance and tennis, and there are clubs for gardening, art and film. The school has identified SEND provisions covering moderate learning difficulty, social, emotional and mental health needs, speech, language and communication needs, autistic spectrum disorder and other difficulties. With 16.4% of pupils eligible for free school meals, the school serves a diverse intake. This is a well-resourced inner-London primary that suits families who value a broad range of activities and are prepared for a competitive admissions process.

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