St Michael's CofE Aided Primary

About St Michael's CofE Aided Primary

St Michael's CofE Aided Primary in Wiltshire holds an Ofsted rating of Outstanding, a grade it received in its most recent graded inspection in 2016 and confirmed as still current in an ungraded inspection in November 2023. That ungraded visit noted the school 'remains Outstanding (Concerns) - S5 Next', a nuance that suggests inspectors saw areas needing attention but did not downgrade the overall judgement. The most telling exam metric is the proportion of pupils reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined: 79 per cent. That figure places St Michael's 18th out of 159 primary schools in Wiltshire, comfortably inside the top 25 per cent nationally and regionally. It also sits well above the local authority average of 58 per cent for Key Stage 2 combined attainment, underlining that this is a school where most children are meeting the benchmark across all three core subjects.

Looking deeper at the 2023/24 Key Stage 2 results, the school's strengths are clearest in reading and maths. Ninety per cent of pupils reached the expected standard in reading, and 93 per cent did so in maths, with average scaled scores of 110 and 109 respectively. In both subjects, 48 per cent of pupils achieved the higher standard, a strong showing. Writing is a relative weak spot: 79 per cent reached the expected standard, but only 3 per cent hit the higher threshold. That gap is worth noting for parents whose children are particularly strong writers. The school has no published progress scores, so it is not possible to say how much value it adds relative to pupils' starting points. The previous Ofsted inspection in 2011 rated the school Good overall, with Good for leadership and management and Requires Improvement for early years provision, so the trajectory since then has been upward.

St Michael's is a Church of England primary for children aged 4 to 11, with 193 pupils on roll against a capacity of 210. It is oversubscribed: for 2025/26 entry, there were 59 applications for 30 places, with 42 first-preference applications and 30 first-preference offers, giving an oversubscription ratio of nearly 2:1. The school offers a broad set of facilities including a sports hall, gymnasium, playing fields, forest school, art studios and a chapel. Clubs include chess, choir and art club, and sports on offer range from netball and tennis to swimming and cricket. SEND provision covers dyslexia, speech and language needs, autistic spectrum disorder and social, emotional and mental health support. This is a school that suits families who value strong academic outcomes in a faith-based setting, but who should be prepared for a competitive admissions process and aware that writing attainment, while solid, is less exceptional than reading and maths.

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