Hare Street Community Primary School and Nursery

About Hare Street Community Primary School and Nursery

Hare Street Community Primary School and Nursery sits in Harlow, within the Essex local authority, and it has carved out a strong reputation among the area’s primary schools. In the most recent local rankings, it placed 1st out of 28 primary schools in Harlow, and 7th out of 444 across the whole of Essex. Its top-performing peers in the county include Stambridge Primary School, St Thomas More's Catholic Primary School in Colchester, and Great Totham Primary School, all of which share the highest ranking scores. The school is significantly oversubscribed: for the 2025/26 intake, there were 163 applications for just 60 places, with 87 of those as first preferences. That level of demand reflects the school’s standing in the local landscape, and the fact that it operates above its official capacity of 420 pupils, currently teaching 456 children, suggests families are keen to secure a place here.

Academically, the school’s most recent Ofsted inspection, carried out in March 2025, confirmed that standards are maintained at Outstanding across every category — quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management, and early years provision. That’s an upgrade from its previous graded inspection in 2020, which rated the school Good overall. In the 2023/24 Key Stage 2 results, 92% of pupils reached the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined, well above the Essex local authority average of 62%. The school also saw strong performance at the higher standard: 20% of pupils achieved the higher benchmark across all three subjects, with reading particularly strong at 53% reaching the higher level. Average scaled scores were 110 in reading and 109 in maths, both comfortably above the national average of 100.

The school offers a nursery provision for children from age 3, and its facilities include a library, playing fields, a sensory room, a sports hall and a chapel. Sports on offer include swimming, football, cricket, tennis, rounders and cross country, while clubs range from chess and choir to art club. The school supports a wide range of SEND needs, including autistic spectrum disorder, speech and language difficulties, and social, emotional and mental health needs. Parent View responses, collected between September 2024 and September 2025, show that 86% of the 44 respondents would recommend the school, and strong majorities agreed that their child is happy, feels safe, and can take part in clubs and activities. This is a school that suits families looking for a high-performing, oversubscribed primary with strong academic outcomes and a broad range of extracurricular opportunities, particularly those who can secure a place through the Harlow admissions process.

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