Primary schools across the East Midlands helped thousands of children start their educational journey on the right foot in the last school year.
The government’s latest preliminary performance figures for state-funded primary schools were released this week, a week after it published delayed performance figures for secondary schools. From this new data, we’ve created a league table ranking how state primary schools did across all of the East Midlands.
It is primarily based on the percentage of each school’s pupils who completed Year 6 in the 2023-24 academic year, who met the government’s expected standards in three essential school skills: reading, writing and maths. All schools included on the list had at least 90% of their pupils hit this target.
This gave many smaller village and community schools the chance to shine, while also allowing larger primary schools in centres like Leicester and Nottingham - typically with many more pupils to consider - to prove they too can help most of them excel.
Each school included also had an overall Ofsted rating of ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ before this measure was recently dropped, or, if they’ve been inspected more recently, had at least ‘good’ grades across the board. This means that the quality of education provided, student behaviour and attitudes, school leadership and management and student safeguarding were all found to meet or exceed government standards last time the school was inspected.
Here were 30 primary schools from across the East Midlands that topped our list:

17. Hartwell Primary School
This is an Anglican primary school in Hartwell, West Northamptonshire, with a roll size of about 177. It was formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 92% of its pupils also met the government’s expected standard in reading, writing and maths - compared to averages of 63% locally and 61% nationally. | Google

18. Ketton Church of England Primary School
This is an Anglican primary school in the village of Ketton, in the Rutland district. It has about 189 pupils, and was formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 92% of its pupils met the government’s expected standard in reading, writing and maths - compared to averages of 69% locally and 61% nationally. | Google

19. Long Whatton Church of England Primary School
This is an Anglican primary school in the village of Long Whatton, near Loughborough, Leicestershire. It has about 91 pupils, and was formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 92% of its pupils also met the government’s expected standard in reading, writing and maths - compared to averages of 61% both locally and nationally. | Google

20. Briar Hill Primary School & Nursery
Briar Hill is a primary school in Northampton, with about 331 pupils. It was formerly rated ‘outstanding’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 91% of its pupils met the government’s expected standard in reading, writing and maths - compared to averages of 63% locally and 61% nationally. | Google


