St Mark's Church of England Primary School

About St Mark's Church of England Primary School

St Mark's Church of England Primary School in Wealden holds a Good rating from its most recent Ofsted inspection in 2025, with every graded category — quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management, and early years provision — all rated Good. The school's previous inspection in 2018 also rated it Good overall, though early years provision and leadership and management were both Outstanding at that time. The most telling exam metric comes from the 2023/24 Key Stage 2 results: just 29% of pupils met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined. That figure is well below the East Sussex local authority average of 59%, and it places the school 124th out of 144 primary schools in the county. In the national rankings, St Mark's sits in the bottom 3% of all primary schools for this combined measure. The picture is more mixed when you look at individual subjects — 71% of pupils reached the expected standard in maths and 71% in writing, while 64% did so in reading.

Digging deeper into the KS2 data, the average reading score was 106 and the average maths score was 101, both of which are close to the national benchmark of 100. No pupils achieved the higher standard in reading, writing and maths combined, though 36% did reach the higher standard in reading alone. The school's Progress 8 scores are not available, so it's hard to say how much value the school adds relative to pupils' starting points. Parent feedback is overwhelmingly positive: 100% of the 44 respondents to the Parent View survey would recommend the school, and 86% strongly agreed that their child is happy here. 95% strongly agreed that their child feels safe. The school has a relatively small roll of 66 pupils against a capacity of 105, and 25.8% of pupils are eligible for free school meals, which is above the national average.

St Mark's is a Church of England primary school for mixed-gender pupils aged 5 to 11, with no nursery or sixth form provision. It offers a range of facilities including a sports hall, music rooms, art studios, an ICT suite, a sensory room and a chapel. Sports on offer include rounders, football, cricket, netball, tennis and swimming, and there are clubs such as drama, eco club, choir, art club and chess. The school has identified SEND provisions for specific learning difficulties, speech and language needs, autistic spectrum disorder and social, emotional and mental health needs. 39% of Parent View respondents said their child has SEND, and 88% strongly agreed that the school gives those children the support they need. For the 2025/26 intake, the school was oversubscribed with 17 applications for 4 places, and all 4 first-preference applicants were offered a place. This is a small, well-regarded village school where parents report very high satisfaction, but the academic outcomes at KS2 are significantly below the local average, which is worth weighing carefully.

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