Willingdon Primary School

About Willingdon Primary School

Willingdon Primary School has turned a corner. In its most recent Ofsted inspection, the school was rated Good overall, a clear step up from its previous Requires Improvement judgement. The inspection report, published in 2024, awarded Outstanding marks for both personal development and behaviour and attitudes, while leadership and management, quality of education, and early years provision were all rated Good. On the headline academic metric for primary schools, 54% of pupils met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined at Key Stage 2. That figure sits just below the East Sussex local authority average of 59%, and places the school 33rd out of 48 primary schools in the Wealden borough. Nationally, it ranks in the bottom half of all state primaries, though the school's progress in behaviour and leadership suggests a foundation being rebuilt.

Digging into the detail of the 2023/24 exam results, the picture is mixed. In writing, 75% of pupils reached the expected standard, comfortably above the national average, and 15% achieved the higher standard. Reading saw 64% at expected and 29% at the higher level, with an average scaled score of 104. Maths was the weakest area: 69% reached the expected standard, 22% hit the higher threshold, and the average score was 102. No progress scores are available for any of the three subjects, so it's hard to say how much value the school adds relative to pupils' starting points. The school's overall ranking score of 54 places it in the bottom 50% of schools nationally and within the South East region. For context, the top-performing primary in Wealden, St Peter and St Paul CofE Primary School, scored 92, and the nearest Outstanding-rated school is Polegate Primary School, 1.9 kilometres away.

Willingdon is a state primary for mixed-gender pupils aged 5 to 11, with no nursery or sixth form. It is heavily oversubscribed: for 2025/26, there were 146 applications for 59 places, and only 57 first-preference offers were made from 65 first-preference applications — an oversubscription ratio of 2.47. The school serves 418 pupils, just two short of its capacity of 420, and 15.1% are eligible for free school meals. Facilities include an ICT suite, art studios, a sports hall, a gymnasium, a forest school, and an outdoor playground. Sports on offer include swimming, cricket, athletics, dance, netball and rounders, and there are clubs for coding, book club, science club and chess. The school's SEND provisions cover a wide range of needs, including dyslexia, moderate learning difficulty, speech and language needs, hearing impairment, and autistic spectrum disorder. This is a school that suits families who value strong behaviour and personal development, and who are comfortable with a school still improving its core academic outcomes.

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