The most recent school year’s results have shown once again that Sussex has no shortage of fantastic primary schools, from East to West.
The government’s preliminary performance figures for state-funded primary schools were released last month, shortly after it published its delayed performance figures for secondary schools. From this data, we’ve been able to compare how the hundreds of primary schools across East and West Sussex, plus Brighton and Hove, did in the most recent school year - to create a league table of its top performers.
Our list is primarily based on the percentage of each school’s pupils who completed Year 6 in the 2023/24 academic year, and met the government’s expected standards in three areas: reading, writing and maths. We’ve included only schools which had at least 80% of their young pupils hit this target. Smaller village and faith schools, and larger ones in the likes of Crawley, Horsham, Hastings and Bexhill have all made the list, as have some familiar names from last year’s primary school league table.
We’ve also made sure that each school included 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 are the 22 schools from across Sussex that came out on top:
5. Barns Green Primary School
This is a primary school in the village of Barns Green, near Horsham, West Sussex. It has a roll size of about 133, and was in a recent Ofsted inspection, was rated ‘good’ in all categories. In the 2023/24 school year, 86% of its pupils also met the expected standards in reading, writing and maths - compared to averages of 57% locally and 61% nationally. | Google
6. Blackboys Church of England Primary School
This is an Anglican primary school in the Blackboys area, near Uckfield, East Sussex. It has about 133 pupils, and was formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 86% of its pupils again met the expected standards in reading, writing and maths, compared to averages of 58% locally and 61% nationally. | Google
7. Heron Way Primary School
Heron Way is a primary school in Horsham, West Sussex. It had around 418 young students in the last school year, and was formerly rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, it too had 86% of its pupils meet the expected standards in reading, writing and maths - compared to averages of 57% locally and 61% nationally. | Google
8. Hurst Green Church of England Primary School and Nursery
This is an Anglican primary school in the East Sussex village of Hurst Green, with a roll size of about 121. It was formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 85% of its pupils met the expected standards in reading, writing and maths, compared to averages of 58% locally and 61% nationally. | Google