The School Record

Published admissions and inspection figures for schools in England, from the DfE, Ofsted and local authorities.

Pulford CofE VA Lower School

URN 109619 · Primary · Voluntary aided school · Central Bedfordshire

Pulford Road, Leighton Buzzard, LU7 1AB

How many families applied

Preferences expressed and offers made at Reception, as published by the Department for Education. These describe demand. They do not indicate whether any particular child would be offered a place.

In the 2025 intake, 58 families named Pulford CofE VA Lower School as their first preference, and the school made 44 offers.

That is 1.32 first preferences per place offered, which places it above 94% of schools admitting at Reception in England that year.

More first preferences per place than 94% of comparable schools position among schools in England admitting at Reception, 2025 intake

Little change. Across the 5 most recent years held, first preferences per place averaged 1.32 in 2021–2022 and 1.28 in 2024–2025.

Applications and offers at Reception, 12 intake years
Intake 1st preferences All preferences Offers made 1st prefs per place
2025 58 104 44 1.32
2024 53 103 43 1.23
2023 52 78 45 1.16
2022 62 96 45 1.38
2021 57 91 45 1.27
2020 52 82 45 1.16
2019 50 85 45 1.11
2018 44 76 45 0.98
2017 53 101 45 1.18
2016 57 103 45 1.27
2015 49 91 45 1.09
2014 44 79 45 0.98

“Offers made” counts the offers the school made. It is not the number of places the school had, so please do not read it as one.

Ofsted

Ofsted changed its inspection framework: the current one publishes several graded areas and no single overall grade, while the previous one published an overall effectiveness grade. Each inspection below states which framework produced it.

Ofsted graded inspection (previous framework), 7 November 2023

Overall effectiveness: Good

Quality of education: Good

Behaviour and attitudes: Good

Personal development: Good

Leadership and management: Good

Early years: Good

Sixth form / post-16: 9

Ofsted's report for this school

Teachers staying and leaving

These come from the School Workforce Census, which follows each teacher into the next year. The numbers count full-time jobs, so a teacher who works half the week counts as half. They are not a count of people.

Census yearTeachers (FTE) Still there a year later Moved to another state school Left state schools Left in total
2024/25 11.2 10.9 0.0 0.3 2.7%
2023/24 11.8 10.4 1.2 0.2 11.9%
2022/23 12.3 9.9 0.0 2.4 19.5%
2021/22 11.8 11.8 0.0 0.0 0.0%
2020/21 12.4 12.4 0.0 0.0 0.0%
2019/20 11.5 11.3 0.0 0.2 1.7%

This is turnover among teachers. It says nothing about the headteacher or the senior leadership team: DfE publishes leadership retention separately and we do not hold it by school.

Catchment area

Nobody publishes a catchment area map for this school that we can read. That does not mean an address is outside its area. It means we hold no map, so we cannot tell you either way.

Where it is

The 6 nearest primary schools we hold figures for, by straight-line distance from Pulford CofE VA Lower School.

Nearby and related

Where these figures come from

This page was made on 9 September 2026. "Retrieved" means the day we downloaded the data. It is not the day the data was written, so the figures can be about an earlier year. How we compare schools.