Downlands Community School
URN 113659 · Primary · Community school · Dorset
Blandford Camp, Blandford Forum, DT11 8BG
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, 15 families named Downlands Community School as their first preference, and the school made 17 offers.
That is 0.88 first preferences per place offered, which places it above 18% of schools admitting at Reception in England that year.
position among schools in England admitting at Reception, 2025 intake
Little change. Across the 5 most recent years held, first preferences per place averaged 1.0 in 2021–2022 and 0.94 in 2024–2025.
| Intake | 1st preferences | All preferences | Offers made | 1st prefs per place |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 15 | 17 | 17 | 0.88 |
| 2024 | 32 | 33 | 32 | 1.00 |
| 2023 | 21 | 24 | 21 | 1.00 |
| 2022 | 37 | 39 | 37 | 1.00 |
| 2021 | 28 | 30 | 28 | 1.00 |
| 2020 | 17 | 22 | 17 | 1.00 |
| 2019 | 27 | 32 | 29 | 0.93 |
| 2018 | 37 | 41 | 37 | 1.00 |
| 2017 | 29 | 33 | 29 | 1.00 |
| 2016 | 37 | 43 | 38 | 0.97 |
| 2015 | 42 | 47 | 42 | 1.00 |
| 2014 | 44 | 50 | 44 | 1.00 |
“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 report card (current framework), 13 January 2026
Safeguarding: Met
Inclusion: Expected standard
Curriculum and teaching: Needs attention
Achievement: Needs attention
Attendance and behaviour: Expected standard
Personal development and wellbeing: Expected standard
Early years: Expected standard
Leadership and governance: Needs attention
The current framework does not award an overall grade.
Ofsted's report for this school
Ofsted graded inspection (previous framework), 7 June 2023
Overall effectiveness: Requires improvement
Quality of education: Requires improvement
Behaviour and attitudes: Good
Personal development: Good
Leadership and management: Requires improvement
Early years: Good
Sixth form / post-16: 9
Ofsted's report for this school
Exam results
Published by the Department for Education for the whole year group. Figures for smaller cohorts are withheld by DfE to protect pupil privacy and appear here as a dash, not a zero.
| Year | Expected standard in reading, writing & maths | Higher standard | Average reading score | Average maths score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024/25 | 42.0% | 4.0% | 102.0 | 103.0 |
| 2023/24 | 42.0% | 3.0% | 104.0 | 103.0 |
| 2022/23 | 45.0% | 3.0% | 104.0 | 103.0 |
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 year | Teachers (FTE) | Still there a year later | Moved to another state school | Left state schools | Left in total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024/25 | 11.5 | 8.9 | 1.0 | 1.7 | 23.5% |
| 2023/24 | 11.5 | 11.5 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0% |
| 2022/23 | 11.2 | 10.5 | 0.7 | 0.0 | 6.2% |
| 2021/22 | 10.1 | 8.5 | 0.0 | 1.6 | 15.8% |
| 2020/21 | 10.6 | 9.0 | 0.0 | 1.7 | 16.0% |
| 2019/20 | 12.0 | 10.2 | 0.0 | 1.8 | 15.0% |
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 Downlands Community School.
- Archbishop Wake Church of England Primary School: 3.2 km (2.0 miles) south-west, Blandford Forum
- Milldown CofE Academy: 3.8 km (2.4 miles) west, Blandford Forum
- Blandford St Mary Church of England Primary School: 4.5 km (2.8 miles) south-west, Blandford Forum
- Spetisbury CofE Primary School: 5.5 km (3.4 miles) south, Blandford Forum
- Durweston Church of England Primary School: 6.1 km (3.8 miles) west, Blandford Forum
- Witchampton Church of England First School: 7.1 km (4.4 miles) east, Wimborne
Nearby and related
- Other schools near Downlands Community School
- All schools in Dorset
- Schools in the DT11 postcode district
- What data we hold
- This page as JSON: the same figures, for software that would rather not read a web page
Where these figures come from
- Department for Education: Get Information about Schools. School identity, type, phase and address
Retrieved 2 September 2026 - Ofsted: state-funded school inspections management information. Inspection outcomes, published monthly
Retrieved 4 September 2026 - Department for Education: school-level applications and offers. Preferences and offers, 2014 to 2025 intakes
Retrieved 4 September 2026 - Department for Education: key stage 2 attainment. Reading, writing and maths outcomes, by school
Retrieved 4 September 2026 - Department for Education: school workforce in England. Teacher turnover, by school, from the School Workforce Census
Retrieved 4 September 2026
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.