St John's Chapel Primary School

About St John's Chapel Primary School

Every available place at St John's Chapel Primary School was filled by a first-preference application for the 2025/26 intake, with three offers made from three applications. That perfect oversubscription ratio of 1.0 suggests a school that local families are actively choosing, even if it isn't technically oversubscribed. The school is a small, state-funded primary for mixed genders aged 2 to 11, with a nursery on site. With just 27 pupils against a capacity of 60, classes are very small, which can mean a lot of individual attention. The most recent Ofsted inspection, an ungraded visit in June 2024, confirmed the school 'remains Good', a rating it has held since its previous graded inspection in March 2019. Co-executive headteachers Sarah Hodgkinson and Richard Sains lead the school, which has no religious character and sits in the County Durham local authority area.

Academically, the school's most recent graded inspection in 2019 rated both leadership and management and overall effectiveness as Good. That was a step down from its previous graded inspection in 2014, which had judged the school Outstanding across the board. The most recent ungraded inspection in 2024 found no reason to change the Good rating. For context, the local authority average for Key Stage 2 attainment sits at 62, though St John's Chapel's own KS2 results are not provided in the available data. The school serves a community where 22.2% of pupils are eligible for free school meals, which is above the national average and gives some indication of the intake. There are no sixth-form or A-Level results to report, as the school only goes up to Year 6.

Facilities are surprisingly broad for such a small school, including an ICT suite, sensory room, music rooms, art studios, a forest school area, gymnasium, library, dining hall and even a chapel. Sports on offer include football, cricket, swimming and dance, while clubs range from choir and coding to film and eco club. The school has identified SEND provisions for specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, social, emotional and mental health needs, speech, language and communication needs, and autistic spectrum disorder. This is a school that will particularly suit families who value a very small, rural-style setting with strong community feel and a wide range of enrichment activities despite its size. The nursery provision is a practical bonus for families with younger children.

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