Parwich Primary School

About Parwich Primary School

Parwich Primary School is a small state primary in the Derbyshire Dales that parents clearly want to get into. For the 2025/26 admissions round, the school received five total applications for just four places, making it oversubscribed with a ratio of 1.25 applicants per place. All four first-preference applicants were offered a spot, which suggests that while demand is healthy, families who put it first have a strong chance. The school doesn't publish a parent-view survey percentage, so we can't point to a specific recommend rate, but the oversubscription itself is a practical signal that local families rate it. With only 21 pupils on roll against a capacity of 70, the school is running well below its maximum, which means class sizes are tiny and children get a lot of individual attention. That kind of intimate setting often appeals to parents who want their child to be known properly, not just as one of many.

Academically, Parwich holds a Good rating from Ofsted, a grade it achieved in its most recent graded inspection in 2013 and confirmed as remaining Good during an ungraded visit in 2022. That's a solid, stable judgement. The previous inspection in 2009 had rated the school as Requires Improvement, so the improvement to Good and the sustained rating since then is a clear positive. The school's most recent Ofsted report praised leadership and management as Good, and the early years provision was rated 3 (Requires Improvement) back in 2009, but that has since been turned around. We don't have specific KS2 SATs results for Parwich, so we can't compare directly to the Derbyshire local authority average of 59% achieving the expected standard. However, the school sits in a local authority where only nine out of 353 primary schools are rated Outstanding, so a Good rating here is a respectable and realistic benchmark for most families.

The school packs a surprising amount into its small footprint. Facilities include a sports hall, ICT suite, sensory room, forest school area, art studios, playing fields, an outdoor playground, a library and even a chapel. Sports on offer range from athletics and tennis to swimming, netball, dance, cross country and gymnastics, while after-school clubs cover coding, art, film, drama and chess. For SEND, the school lists provisions for specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, profound and multiple learning difficulties, speech, language and communication needs, autistic spectrum disorder and other difficulties. That breadth of support is notable for a school of this size. Parwich is a non-religious, mixed primary for ages 4 to 11 with no nursery or sixth form. It suits families who value a close-knit, rural village school where their child won't get lost in the crowd, and who are happy to travel a bit for a place that's in demand but not impossibly so.

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