Hillsgrove Primary School

About Hillsgrove Primary School

Hillsgrove Primary School is a state-funded, mixed primary school in the London Borough of Bexley, serving children aged 3 to 11. Within the local authority, it sits in the bottom half of the rankings, placed 37th out of 55 primary schools. The top-performing peers in Bexley are all Catholic primaries: St Thomas More, St John Fisher, and St Stephen’s. The nearest school rated Outstanding by Ofsted is St Stephen’s Catholic Primary School, just 1.4 km away. Hillsgrove itself holds a Good rating from its most recent graded inspection in 2018, and an ungraded inspection in 2023 confirmed the school remains Good. That marks a clear improvement from its previous inspection in 2013, when it was judged to Require Improvement. The school is led by headteacher Kathryn Laurie and currently has 311 pupils on roll, well below its capacity of 420.

Academically, Hillsgrove’s Key Stage 2 results for the 2023/24 year show that 61% of pupils met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined. That is below the Bexley local authority average of 67%. The school’s ranking on this metric places it in the bottom 50% nationally, at the 55th percentile. Looking at individual subjects, 78% of pupils reached the expected standard in reading, 72% in writing, and 74% in maths. At the higher standard, the picture is more mixed: 33% achieved higher scores in reading, 31% in maths, but just 2% in writing and the same for the combined measure. Average scaled scores were 107 in reading and 105 in maths. Progress measures for reading, writing and maths are not available in the data, so it is not possible to say how much value the school adds relative to pupils’ starting points.

Hillsgrove offers a broad range of facilities including an outdoor playground, ICT suite, playing fields, forest school, gymnasium, art studios and a chapel. Sports on offer include athletics, cross country, rounders, netball, cricket, gymnastics and football, while clubs include Eco Club, drama and choir. The school has a nursery provision and a wide array of SEND support, covering specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, moderate learning difficulty, social, emotional and mental health needs, speech and language communication needs, hearing impairment, autistic spectrum disorder, and a resourced provision. For the 2025/26 intake, the school was oversubscribed: 43 applications were received for 14 places, with all 14 first-preference applicants offered a spot. That oversubscription ratio of 3.07 to 1 suggests strong local demand, and families considering Hillsgrove should be aware that securing a place is competitive.

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