Short Wood Primary School

About Short Wood Primary School

Parents at Short Wood Primary School are overwhelmingly positive about their experience, with 98% of respondents to the most recent Parent View survey saying they would recommend the school. That survey, covering September 2024 to September 2025, drew 54 responses and showed particularly strong satisfaction around pupil happiness and safety: 74% strongly agreed their child is happy, and 78% strongly agreed their child feels safe. The school is clearly popular locally, too. For the 2025/26 intake, it received 91 applications for 68 places, giving an oversubscription ratio of 1.34. Of those, 64 were first-preference applications, and 63 first-preference offers were made. The school is led by headteacher Gail Butele and is a state primary for mixed-gender pupils aged 3 to 11, with a nursery provision on site. It sits in the Telford and Wrekin local authority and has a non-religious character.

Academically, Short Wood is a Good school according to its most recent graded Ofsted inspection in 2015, and an ungraded inspection in January 2025 confirmed that standards were maintained. The leadership and management, as well as the early years provision, were both rated Good. However, the school’s Key Stage 2 results for 2023/24 place it in the bottom half of schools nationally, ranking 31st out of 40 primary schools in Telford and Wrekin. Just 53% of pupils met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined, compared with a local authority average of 63%. The average scores in reading and maths were both 102, and the proportion reaching the higher standard in those subjects was 18% and 11% respectively. The school has a higher-than-average proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals at 34.8%, and its capacity of 490 is exceeded by its current roll of 546 pupils.

The school offers a broad range of facilities including playing fields, a library, music rooms, a sports hall, a gymnasium and a forest school. Sports on offer include football, cricket, tennis, athletics, gymnastics, dance and rounders, while clubs include science, coding, drama and choir. The school’s SEND provisions cover specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia, moderate learning difficulties, social, emotional and mental health needs, speech, language and communication needs, hearing impairment and autistic spectrum disorder. In the Parent View survey, 45% of respondents strongly agreed that the school gives SEND children the support they need, though 9% strongly disagreed. Given its oversubscribed status and strong parent satisfaction scores, Short Wood is a school that clearly appeals to local families, particularly those who value a Good-rated setting with a wide range of extracurricular activities and a strong emphasis on pupil wellbeing.

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