St Nicholas Elstree Church of England VA Primary School

About St Nicholas Elstree Church of England VA Primary School

St Nicholas Elstree Church of England VA Primary School is a small village primary in Hertsmere, and its headline academic metrics sit well below the local authority average for primary schools. In the 2023/24 Key Stage 2 results, just 18% of pupils reached the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined, compared with a Hertfordshire LA average of 64%. That is a gap of 46 percentage points, and it places the school 325th out of 401 primary schools in the county. The school ranks bottom of the 29 schools in its own borough of Hertsmere, and in the bottom 1% nationally. These figures are stark, and they reflect a school that is clearly struggling to match the outcomes of its peers. The picture is consistent across individual subjects: only 27% of pupils met the expected standard in maths, 55% in reading, and 45% in writing. No pupils achieved the higher standard across all three subjects.

The school’s most recent Ofsted inspection, in October 2023, rated it as Requires Improvement across all four key areas: quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, and leadership and management. This is a downgrade from its previous Good rating in 2014. The inspection report, published in November 2023, will likely detail the specific weaknesses behind the academic results. With only 57 pupils on roll against a capacity of 105, the school is running at just over half its capacity, which may reflect local parental preference given the outcomes. The headteacher is Kate Johnston-Grant, and the school is a Church of England voluntary aided primary, so it has a religious character that may appeal to some families. The proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals is 15.8%, which is slightly above the national average for primary schools.

Despite the academic challenges, the school offers a range of facilities including a music room, sports hall, ICT suite, sensory room, chapel and dining hall. Sports provision includes gymnastics, swimming, tennis, cross country, netball and dance, and there are clubs such as art, choir, film club, coding and drama. The school has a dedicated sensory room and offers SEND support for social, emotional and mental health needs, speech, language and communication needs, hearing impairment and autistic spectrum disorder. For the 2025/26 intake, the school was oversubscribed with 14 applications for 7 places, and all 7 first-preference applicants received offers. This suggests that for families who value a small, church-affiliated village school with strong SEND provision and a broad extracurricular offer, St Nicholas Elstree remains a popular choice, even if its academic results are currently well below the local norm.

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