Kitwell Primary School

About Kitwell Primary School

Kitwell Primary School is a state primary in Birmingham that clearly inspires strong local confidence. For the 2025/26 intake, the school received 48 applications for just 18 places, giving an oversubscription ratio of 2.67. Every one of those 18 first-preference applicants was offered a place, which suggests that families who put Kitwell as their top choice are very likely to get in, but the overall demand is more than two and a half times the available spaces. The school is a Good-rated primary under headteacher S M Shevels, and its most recent Ofsted inspection in 2023 saw it improve from a Requires Improvement rating in 2019 across every category. All five key areas — quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management, and early years provision — are now rated Good. With 181 pupils on roll against a capacity of 210, there is some headroom, but the oversubscription figures show that parents are voting with their applications.

Academically, Kitwell’s KS2 results for 2023/24 are mixed when compared with the Birmingham local authority average of 63 per cent of pupils reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and maths. At Kitwell, 37 per cent of pupils achieved that combined benchmark, which places the school at 247th out of 254 primary schools in the LA — in the bottom 50 per cent nationally. However, individual subject scores tell a slightly more nuanced story: 63 per cent of pupils met the expected standard in writing, 60 per cent in reading, and 57 per cent in maths. The average scaled scores for reading and maths both sit at 100, which is exactly the national average. A very small proportion of pupils reached the higher standard — 10 per cent in maths, 3 per cent in reading, and none in writing or the combined measure. The school’s Progress 8 scores are not available, so it is difficult to assess how much value the school adds relative to pupils’ starting points.

Kitwell offers a solid range of facilities and enrichment for a primary of its size, including playing fields, a sports hall, art studios, music rooms, a library, a forest school and a chapel. Sports on offer include tennis, rounders, athletics and gymnastics, and there are clubs such as chess, gardening, choir, art club and eco club. The school has a notably broad SEND offer, with provisions for moderate learning difficulty, social, emotional and mental health needs, speech, language and communication needs, hearing impairment, physical disability, autistic spectrum disorder and other difficulties. With 68 per cent of pupils eligible for free school meals, Kitwell serves a community with high levels of disadvantage, and the school’s recent improvement journey from Requires Improvement to Good suggests it is heading in the right direction. This is a school that will particularly suit families who value a strong SEND support framework and a wide range of extracurricular activities, and who are comfortable with a school that is still working to raise its academic outcomes.

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