St John and St James CofE Primary School

About St John and St James CofE Primary School

St John and St James CofE Primary School in Hackney received an Outstanding rating across every category in its most recent Ofsted inspection in 2024, a clean sweep that includes quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, early years provision, and leadership and management. The school has held this top grade consistently since at least its previous inspection in 2013. On the most revealing exam metric for a primary school, 80% of its pupils met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined at Key Stage 2 in the 2023/24 academic year. That is comfortably above the Hackney local authority average of 74% for the same measure, placing the school 18th out of 49 primary schools in the borough and within the top 25% nationally. The school’s ranking score of 80 reflects strong core performance, though it sits behind local peers Simon Marks Jewish Primary School, Southwold Primary School and Grazebrook Primary School, which occupy the top three spots in Hackney.

Digging into the individual subject scores, the school’s reading results are particularly strong: 97% of pupils reached the expected standard, with 33% achieving the higher standard. In writing, 90% met expectations and 23% hit the higher mark, while in maths 80% reached the expected level and 20% achieved the higher standard. Average scaled scores were 108 in reading and 106 in maths, both above the national benchmark of 100. The school does not publish progress scores for any subject, so it is not possible to say how much value it adds relative to pupils’ starting points, but the raw attainment figures are solid. With 38.9% of its 223 pupils eligible for free school meals, the school serves a community with above-average disadvantage, making its academic outcomes all the more notable. The school does not have a sixth form, as it is a primary school, and its nursery provision means children can join from age three.

The school is oversubscribed: for the 2025/26 intake, it received 76 applications for 28 places, a ratio of 2.71 applicants per place, and made 25 offers to first-preference families. Facilities include a Forest School, library, gymnasium, dining hall, ICT suite and chapel, and the sports offering covers swimming, cricket, netball, gymnastics, tennis and cross country. Clubs range from book club and gardening to choir, drama, chess and art club. The school’s SEND provisions are broad, covering specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia, moderate learning difficulty, social, emotional and mental health needs, speech, language and communication needs, hearing impairment, physical disability, and autistic spectrum disorder. The nearest other Outstanding-rated primary school is Morningside Primary School, just 0.2 km away. This is a strong, inclusive Church of England primary that suits families who value consistent top-tier Ofsted grades, above-average KS2 outcomes, and a wide range of enrichment activities within a diverse Hackney community.

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