Redwood Primary School

About Redwood Primary School

Redwood Primary School sits within the Derby local authority, a large primary that ranks 21st out of 58 similar schools in the area. That places it in the top half of Derby primaries, though it is some way behind the top performers in the LA: Griffe Field Primary School, Gayton Junior School, and St Mary's Catholic Voluntary Academy all score higher on the same ranking metric. Redwood is a state-funded, mixed-gender primary for children aged 3 to 11, with no religious character and no sixth form. It has a nursery provision and is currently oversubscribed: for the 2025/26 intake, there were 106 applications for 64 places, with 62 first-preference offers made. The school is led by headteacher Lyndsey Shepherd and was most recently inspected by Ofsted in January 2023, where it was confirmed to remain Good — a rating it has held consistently across its previous graded inspection in 2017 and the earlier 2013 inspection.

Academically, Redwood's Key Stage 2 results for the 2023/24 year show 61% of pupils reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined. That is above the Derby LA average of 55%, though the school's ranking score of 61 places it in the bottom 50% nationally. Looking at individual subjects, 73% met the expected standard in reading, 70% in writing, and 86% in maths. At the higher standard, the picture is more mixed: 29% achieved higher in reading, 10% in writing, and 33% in maths, but only 8% reached the higher threshold across all three subjects. Average scaled scores were 104 in reading and 106 in maths. The school does not publish progress scores for reading, writing or maths, so it is not possible to compare how much value the school adds relative to pupils' starting points. The Ofsted breakdown from the 2017 graded inspection rated leadership and management, early years provision, and overall effectiveness all as Good.

Redwood is a large school, with 609 pupils on roll against a capacity of 685, and a high proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals at 45.5%. The school offers a broad range of facilities including a forest school, sports hall, gymnasium, music rooms, playing fields, and a chapel. Sports on offer include netball, football, cricket and cross country, while clubs range from science and art to coding, chess, choir and gardening. The school's SEND provisions cover moderate learning difficulty, social, emotional and mental health needs, speech, language and communication needs, and autistic spectrum disorder. For families considering Redwood, the oversubscription ratio of 1.66 means it is a popular choice, and the nearest Outstanding-rated primary is St George's Catholic Voluntary Academy, 1.9 km away. This is a school that serves a diverse community with above-average KS2 outcomes for the local authority, though families aiming for the highest academic benchmarks may want to look at the top-ranked peers in the area.

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