Plumpton School

About Plumpton School

Plumpton School is a state primary for mixed-gender pupils aged 3 to 11, located in the Westmorland and Furness local authority. Within this LA, it sits at rank 67 out of 121 primary schools, placing it just below the midpoint. The top-performing peers in the area are Yarlside Academy, St Mary's Catholic Primary School in Ulverston, and Goodly Dale Primary School, all of which outrank it on the LA’s key-stage-two metric. The school is led by headteacher Sarah Penny and has a non-religious character. With 101 pupils on roll against a capacity of 105, it is operating close to full. The most recent Ofsted inspection, an ungraded visit in 2022, confirmed that the school remains Good, a rating it has held consistently since its last graded inspection in 2013, where leadership and management, early years provision, and overall effectiveness were all judged Good.

Academically, Plumpton’s key-stage-two results for the 2023/24 academic year show a mixed picture. The proportion of pupils reaching the expected standard in reading, writing, and maths combined was 50%, below the LA average of 58%. In reading, 75% met the expected standard and 25% achieved a higher score, while in writing 63% met the expected standard and 13% reached the higher mark. Maths saw 50% at expected and 13% at the higher level. Average scaled scores were 106 in reading and 102 in maths. The school’s ranking on the key-stage-two expected-standard metric places it in the bottom 50% nationally, at the 79th percentile, and in the bottom 50% within the North West region. Progress scores 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.

The school offers a broad set of facilities including a sensory room, gymnasium, forest school, sports hall, and an ICT suite. Sports provision covers football, cricket, netball, dance, swimming, and athletics, while clubs include choir, drama, science club, chess, and eco club. SEND support is available for a range of needs, including dyslexia, moderate learning difficulty, social and emotional mental health, speech and language communication, physical disability, and autistic spectrum disorder. There is nursery provision for younger children. For the 2025/26 intake, the school was oversubscribed: 28 applications were received for 10 places, with all 10 first-preference applicants offered a spot, giving an oversubscription ratio of 2.8. This suggests a school that is popular locally but still accessible for families who prioritise it. It would suit parents looking for a small, community-focused primary with strong SEND support and a good range of extracurricular activities, set in a rural LA with several higher-performing alternatives nearby.

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