Scarborough, Overdale Community Primary School

About Scarborough, Overdale Community Primary School

When you compare Scarborough, Overdale Community Primary School’s headline metrics against the North Yorkshire local authority average for primary schools, the picture is mixed. The LA average for pupils reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and maths (RWM) at Key Stage 2 is 60 per cent, but Overdale’s figure sits at 40 per cent — a gap of 20 percentage points. That places the school in the bottom 50 per cent nationally, ranking 208th out of 223 primaries in North Yorkshire and in the 93rd percentile regionally. However, the school’s individual subject scores tell a slightly different story. In maths, 60 per cent of pupils met the expected standard, exactly matching the LA average, and the average maths score of 102 is solid. Reading and writing expected rates are lower, at 47 per cent and 63 per cent respectively, but the proportion of pupils reaching the higher standard in any of the three subjects is very small — just 3 per cent in RWM combined. So while the headline figure lags behind, the maths performance is in line with the local norm.

The school’s most recent Ofsted inspection, an ungraded visit in February 2024, confirmed that it remains Good, a rating it has held since its previous graded inspection in December 2018. In that graded inspection, leadership and management, early years provision, and overall effectiveness were all judged Good. The school serves a community with a high level of disadvantage: 43.8 per cent of pupils are eligible for free school meals, well above the national average. This context is important when interpreting the KS2 results. 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’s ranking score of 40, based on the RWM expected standard metric, places it in the bottom tier nationally, but this single measure does not capture the full picture of a school that Ofsted continues to rate positively.

Overdale is a larger-than-average primary with 354 pupils on roll against a capacity of 420, and it offers nursery provision for children from age two. The school was oversubscribed for 2025/26 reception places, receiving 79 applications for 42 places, with 40 first-preference offers made — an oversubscription ratio of 1.88. Facilities include an outdoor playground, library, art studios, playing fields, ICT suite, sensory room and a chapel. Sports offered include tennis, athletics, gymnastics and dance, and there are clubs for gardening, drama and art. The school has a broad range of SEND provisions, covering moderate learning difficulty, social, emotional and mental health needs, speech, language and communication needs, physical disability, autistic spectrum disorder, and other difficulties. This suggests the school is well set up to support children with additional needs. For families in Scarborough, Overdale offers a Good-rated, inclusive primary with strong early years provision, though the academic outcomes at KS2 are below the LA average.

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