Wilstead Primary School

About Wilstead Primary School

Wilstead Primary School holds a Good rating from Ofsted, a grade it has maintained consistently across its two most recent inspections, the latest of which took place in 2023. In that inspection, every category — quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management, and early years provision — was judged Good. The most telling exam metric for this primary school is the proportion of pupils reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined, which stood at 56% in the 2023/24 academic year. That figure sits just one percentage point below the Bedford local authority average of 57%, placing Wilstead 26th out of 46 primary schools in the area. While the school falls in the bottom half of the national rankings for this measure, the picture is more nuanced when you look at individual subjects.

Breaking down the Key Stage 2 results, the school’s strongest subject was maths, where 84% of pupils met the expected standard and the average scaled score reached 104. Writing followed closely with 68% at expected, while reading was slightly lower at 64%. At the higher standard — working at greater depth — maths again led with 16%, compared with 24% in reading and 20% in writing. Only 8% of pupils achieved the higher standard across all three subjects. The school’s Progress 8 scores are not available, so it is difficult to assess how much value the school adds relative to pupils’ starting points, but the raw attainment figures suggest a solid, if not exceptional, academic profile. Parents appear broadly satisfied: 82% would recommend the school, and 88% agreed or strongly agreed that their child is happy there.

Wilstead is a smaller-than-average primary school with 191 pupils against a capacity of 210, and it is oversubscribed: for 22 places in the 2025/26 intake, there were 55 applications, all 20 first-preference applicants were offered a place, giving an oversubscription ratio of 2.5. The school offers a wide range of facilities including a library, music rooms, a forest school, a gymnasium, playing fields and a sports hall, plus clubs such as gardening, coding, film club and eco club. Its SEND provisions cover seven areas including autistic spectrum disorder, speech and language needs, and social, emotional and mental health support, though the Parent View data for SEND had no responses, so it is unclear how families with children on the SEND register feel about the support on offer. This is a school that suits families looking for a well-regarded local primary with good behaviour and a broad extracurricular offer, set in a village-style setting within the Bedford authority.

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