Oaklands School

About Oaklands School

Oaklands School in Medway was rated Good in its most recent graded Ofsted inspection in 2018, a significant improvement from its previous Requires Improvement rating in 2016. The school’s most recent ungraded inspection in 2023 confirmed it remains Good, with leadership and management also judged Good. The single most telling exam metric is the proportion of pupils reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined: 48 per cent. That is well below the local authority average of 62 per cent for primary schools, and it places Oaklands 46th out of 55 primary schools in Medway, putting it in the bottom half of the local league table. Nationally, the school sits in the bottom 20 per cent of primaries on this measure. The picture is mixed when you look at individual subjects: 69 per cent of pupils met the expected standard in both reading and writing, and 61 per cent in maths, but only 2 per cent reached the higher standard across all three subjects.

The school’s average scaled scores tell a similar story. In reading, pupils averaged 104, and in maths 102 — both slightly above the national benchmark of 100, but not dramatically so. The proportion reaching the higher standard in reading was 20 per cent, in maths 11 per cent, and in writing just 6 per cent. Oaklands does not publish Progress 8 scores, so it is hard to say how much value the school adds relative to pupils’ starting points. The Ofsted early years provision was rated Good in the 2018 inspection, though the 2016 inspection had judged it Requires Improvement. With 40.9 per cent of pupils eligible for free school meals — well above the national average — the school serves a relatively disadvantaged community, which provides important context for its academic results.

Oaklands is a three-to-11 mixed primary with nursery provision and is heavily oversubscribed: for 2025/26, it received 109 applications for 49 places, with 47 offers made to first-preference families. The school has a broad range of facilities including playing fields, a sports hall, a gymnasium, an ICT suite, a forest school and even a chapel. Sports on offer include cross country, rounders, netball and tennis, while clubs range from drama and science club to choir and gardening. The school lists eight SEND provisions, covering specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, moderate learning difficulty, speech and language needs, autistic spectrum disorder and physical disability. For families considering alternatives, the nearest Outstanding-rated primary is St Thomas More Roman Catholic Primary School, just 0.3 km away. Oaklands will suit families who value a Good-rated local school with strong SEND support and a wide range of extracurricular activities, and who are comfortable with academic results that sit below the local average.

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