The School Record

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

The Grove Infant and Nursery School

URN 117281 · Primary · Community school · Hertfordshire

Dark Lane, Harpenden, AL5 1QD

Figures current as of 4 September 2026, the day we last checked a source behind this page.

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, 69 families named The Grove Infant and Nursery School as their first preference, and the school made 60 offers.

That is 1.15 first preferences per place offered, which places it above 87% of schools admitting at Reception in England that year.

More first preferences per place than 87% 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 0.99 in 2021–2022 and 0.98 in 2024–2025.

Applications and offers at Reception, 12 intake years
Intake 1st preferences All preferences Offers made 1st prefs per place
2025 69 180 60 1.15
2024 61 173 75 0.81
2023 62 158 63 0.98
2022 71 180 78 0.91
2021 96 232 89 1.08
2020 77 215 90 0.86
2019 76 210 90 0.84
2018 77 221 90 0.86
2017 65 194 79 0.82
2016 76 204 83 0.92
2015 109 270 90 1.21
2014 109 262 90 1.21

“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.

Source: Department for Education: school-level applications and offers, checked 4 September 2026. All sources.

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: Outstanding

Quality of education: Outstanding

Behaviour and attitudes: Outstanding

Personal development: Outstanding

Leadership and management: Outstanding

Early years: Outstanding

Sixth form / post-16: 9

Ofsted's report for this school

Source: Ofsted: state-funded school inspections management information, checked 4 September 2026. All sources.

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 11.8 10.3 0.5 1.0 12.7%
2023/24 12.5 10.2 1.3 1.0 18.4%
2022/23 12.7 11.9 0.8 0.0 6.3%
2021/22 12.6 12.6 0.0 0.0 0.0%
2020/21 13.6 13.4 0.0 0.2 1.5%
2019/20 12.9 12.4 0.0 0.4 3.1%

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 The Grove Infant and Nursery 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.