St Martin's CofE Primary School

About St Martin's CofE Primary School

St Martin's CofE Primary School in Wiltshire is a small Church of England primary for children aged 2 to 11, and it currently has a real mixed bag of signals for parents. The school is oversubscribed, with 23 applications for 14 places in the 2025/26 admissions round, giving a ratio of 1.64 applicants per spot. However, only six of those applications were first-preference choices, which suggests that while the school is popular enough to fill up, it may not be the top pick for most local families. The school's most recent Ofsted inspection, in January 2023, rated it Inadequate overall, a significant downgrade from its previous Requires Improvement rating in 2019. The inspection report flagged leadership and management, quality of education, and early years provision as Inadequate, while behaviour and attitudes and personal development were judged as Requires Improvement. This is a school that has clearly struggled in recent years, and parents considering it will want to dig into the full report to understand what steps are being taken.

Academically, the picture is similarly concerning. The school has no published Key Stage 2 SATs results in the available data, which makes it impossible to compare its performance against the Wiltshire local authority average of 58% of pupils reaching the expected standard. Given the Inadequate Ofsted rating for quality of education, it is reasonable to assume that outcomes are a significant area of weakness. The school serves a relatively disadvantaged intake, with 28% of pupils eligible for free school meals, which is above the national average. With only 132 pupils on roll against a capacity of 210, the school is operating well below its potential size, which may reflect parental confidence issues following the poor inspection outcome. The previous inspection in 2019 had already placed the school in Requires Improvement, so the decline has been sustained rather than sudden.

On the practical side, St Martin's does offer a decent range of facilities for a small primary, including an ICT suite, music rooms, a sports hall, playing fields, and a chapel. There are clubs covering book club, gardening, science, art, coding, and chess, plus sports such as football, rounders, netball, cricket, and cross country. The school has a broad SEND offer, with provisions for moderate learning difficulty, social emotional and mental health needs, speech language and communication needs, and autistic spectrum disorder. This makes it a potentially suitable option for families whose children need additional support, particularly given the small class sizes that come with a low roll. However, the Inadequate rating means the school is under significant pressure from Ofsted, and parents will need to be confident that the leadership team, under headteacher Oliver Martindale, can deliver rapid improvement. This is a school for families who are willing to engage closely with the school's turnaround journey, rather than one that offers a straightforward, high-performing choice.

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