St Levan Primary School

About St Levan Primary School

St Levan Primary School is a small state primary in Cornwall with just 38 pupils against a capacity of 42, meaning it runs very close to full but still has a handful of spaces. The proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals sits at 13.2%, which is below the national average for primary schools and suggests a relatively affluent intake compared with the wider Cornwall picture. Demand is clearly strong: for the 2025/26 intake, the school received 10 applications for just 5 total places, giving an oversubscription ratio of 2 to 1. All 5 first-preference applicants were offered a place, so while the school is oversubscribed overall, families who put it first stand a decent chance. With a mixed gender intake from ages 4 to 11 and no religious character, it draws from a broad local catchment. The headteacher is Ben Chalwin, who leads a team managing a school that feels genuinely small-scale — the kind of setting where every pupil is known individually.

Academically, St Levan holds a Good rating from its most recent Ofsted inspection in February 2024, with the standout category being Personal Development, which was judged Outstanding. The other graded areas — Quality of Education, Behaviour and Attitudes, and Leadership and Management — all came in at Good. This is a consistent picture: the previous inspection in 2014 also rated the school Good overall, with Leadership and Management and Early Years Provision both at Good (the latter scored 2 on the old scale). The school does not publish Key Stage 2 results in the data provided, so it is not possible to compare its SATs performance against the Cornwall local authority average of 58% achieving the expected standard. However, the Ofsted judgement suggests solid foundations, and the Outstanding rating for Personal Development indicates that pupils’ character, resilience, and wider skills are a particular strength. For a school this small, exam data can fluctuate year to year, so the inspection grades offer the most reliable current benchmark.

Facilities are surprisingly generous for a school of this size: a sports hall, gymnasium, library, art studios, outdoor playground, and dining hall are all on site. Sports provision includes athletics, netball, dance, gymnastics, cricket, tennis, and football, while clubs extend to drama, art, eco, and gardening — a decent range for a 38-pupil school. The school has identified SEND provisions covering specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, social and emotional mental health needs, autistic spectrum disorder, and other difficulties or disabilities, so it is equipped to support a range of additional needs. With no nursery or sixth form, it is purely a primary school for ages 4 to 11. Given its oversubscription, families living closest to the school or with siblings already attending will have an advantage. This is a school that suits parents who want a genuinely small, community-focused setting where their child will be well known and where personal development is prioritised alongside academic progress.

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