Swaffham Prior Church of England Primary School

About Swaffham Prior Church of England Primary School

Swaffham Prior Church of England Primary School has turned around its fortunes in a significant way. Its most recent Ofsted inspection in 2022 awarded it a Good rating across every category, including overall effectiveness, quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, and early years provision. This is a marked improvement from its previous inspection in 2017, where the school was rated Inadequate overall. The academic story is best told through its Key Stage 2 results for the 2023/24 academic year. An impressive 73% of pupils met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined, which is well above the local authority average of 58%. This performance places the school second out of 27 primary schools in East Cambridgeshire, putting it in the top 25% nationally.

Digging deeper into the exam data, the school’s strengths are particularly clear in reading and maths. 93% of pupils reached the expected standard in both reading and maths, while 73% did so in writing. At the higher standard, 40% of pupils achieved in reading, 27% in maths, and 13% in writing. The average scaled scores were 108 for reading and 107 for maths, both comfortably above the national benchmark of 100. The school does not have progress scores available for these subjects, so it is not possible to measure how much value it adds relative to pupils’ starting points. However, the raw attainment figures are strong. In the wider local context, Swaffham Prior sits 21st out of 210 primary schools of the same type in Cambridgeshire, and the local authority has only five primary schools rated Outstanding, making this Good rating a solid achievement.

With just 95 pupils on roll against a capacity of 119, the school is small but clearly popular. For the 2025/26 reception intake, it received 26 applications for just 7 places, all of which went to first-preference families, giving an oversubscription ratio of 3.71. The school offers a nursery provision for younger children and a range of facilities including a library, gymnasium, sports hall, music rooms, ICT suite, sensory room, and a chapel. Sports on offer include athletics, rounders, cross country, swimming, cricket, and gymnastics, while clubs cover art, drama, science, and book club. The school has identified SEND provisions for specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, moderate learning difficulties, social, emotional and mental health needs, speech, language and communication needs, and visual impairment. This is a church school that suits families looking for a high-attaining village primary with a strong academic record and a clear Christian character.

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