St Helen's Primary School

About St Helen's Primary School

St Helen’s Primary School in Huntingdonshire is a state-funded mixed primary for children aged 4 to 11, currently home to 188 pupils against a capacity of 210. That leaves a modest buffer of 22 places, but the school is clearly in demand: for the 2025/26 intake, it received 58 total applications for just 30 places, with 33 of those coming as first preferences. The oversubscription ratio sits at 1.93, meaning nearly two families applied for every spot. The proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals is 11.7%, which is slightly below the national primary average of around 23% and suggests a relatively less disadvantaged intake compared with many schools nationally. The school has no religious character and does not offer nursery provision or a sixth form. Julia Walker is the headteacher, and the school sits within Cambridgeshire local authority.

Academically, St Helen’s most recent Ofsted inspection in June 2022 rated it Good across all five categories — quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management, and early years provision. That marks a clear improvement from its previous inspection in 2018, when the school was rated Requires Improvement overall, with leadership and management also at that lower grade. At Key Stage 2 in the 2023/24 academic year, 45% of pupils reached the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined. That is well below the local authority average of 58% and places the school 44th out of 55 primaries in Huntingdonshire, in the bottom 50% nationally. Individual subject scores show 64% reached the expected standard in reading, 73% in writing, and 55% in maths. The proportion reaching the higher standard in all three subjects was just 9%.

The school offers a solid range of facilities including a library, ICT suite, music rooms, art studios, sports hall, playing fields and a Forest School. Sports provision covers rounders, athletics, cricket, swimming, cross country and netball, while clubs include gardening, drama, choir, chess and coding. SEND support is broad, covering specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, moderate learning difficulty, speech and language needs, hearing impairment, physical disability, autistic spectrum disorder and social, emotional and mental health needs. With oversubscription at nearly two-to-one, families applying will need to be realistic about their chances of a place. St Helen’s suits families who value the recent Ofsted improvement and the range of enrichment activities, but who are aware that its KS2 outcomes sit below the local average and that the nearest Outstanding-rated alternative, Somersham Primary School, is 3.2 km away.

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