Westlea Primary School

About Westlea Primary School

Westlea Primary School in Swindon was rated Good in its most recent Ofsted inspection in 2023, with every category — quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management, and early years provision — all judged to be Good. The school’s most telling exam metric is the proportion of pupils reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined, which sits at 57%. That is five percentage points below the Swindon local authority average of 62%, and places Westlea 31st out of 51 primary schools in the area, in the bottom half of the local league table. Nationally, it ranks in the 63rd percentile among 13,686 primaries. The school’s overall ranking score of 57 reflects a solid but not outstanding academic profile, and it has held a Good rating across both its recent inspections, the previous one being in 2011.

Looking more closely at the 2023/24 Key Stage 2 results, Westlea’s strongest subject is writing, where 68% of pupils met the expected standard, followed by reading and maths both at 66%. At the higher standard, reading leads with 30%, then maths at 20%, writing at 7%, and just 5% achieving the higher standard across all three subjects. Average scaled scores are 103 in reading and 104 in maths, both close to the national benchmark of 100. Progress scores are not available in the data, so it is hard to say how much value the school adds from pupils’ starting points. The school has a nursery provision and serves children from age 2, so it may be worth asking about early years outcomes if that is a concern. The Ofsted report from 2023 noted that early years provision was Good, which is consistent with the overall rating.

Westlea is a state primary for mixed genders with 303 pupils, very close to its capacity of 310. It is oversubscribed: for 2025/26 entry, there were 86 applications for 30 places, with 33 first-preference applications and 30 offers made, giving an oversubscription ratio of 2.87. A quarter of pupils (25.5%) are eligible for free school meals, which is above the national average and suggests a relatively disadvantaged intake. The school offers a Forest School, playing fields, a sports hall, music rooms, and a chapel, plus clubs including drama, film, science and art. SEND provision is broad, covering dyslexia, speech and language needs, hearing impairment, autistic spectrum disorder, and a dedicated SEN unit with resourced provision. This makes Westlea a practical choice for families who want a well-resourced mainstream setting with strong support for additional needs, though its academic outcomes are middling compared with other Swindon primaries.

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