Bishops Down Primary and Nursery School
URN 118468 · Primary · Community school · Kent
Rydal Drive, Tunbridge Wells, TN4 9SU
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, 12 families named Bishops Down Primary and Nursery School as their first preference, and the school made 15 offers.
That is 0.80 first preferences per place offered, which places it above 7% of schools admitting at Reception in England that year.
position among schools in England admitting at Reception, 2025 intake
Fewer families are naming it first. Across the 5 most recent years held, first preferences per place averaged 0.95 in 2021–2022 and 0.72 in 2024–2025.
| Intake | 1st preferences | All preferences | Offers made | 1st prefs per place |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 12 | 46 | 15 | 0.80 |
| 2024 | 19 | 69 | 30 | 0.63 |
| 2023 | 20 | 66 | 24 | 0.83 |
| 2022 | 30 | 76 | 30 | 1.00 |
| 2021 | 25 | 81 | 28 | 0.89 |
| 2020 | 29 | 82 | 31 | 0.94 |
| 2019 | 28 | 68 | 29 | 0.97 |
| 2018 | 33 | 103 | 30 | 1.10 |
| 2017 | 37 | 109 | 28 | 1.32 |
| 2016 | 43 | 99 | 29 | 1.48 |
| 2015 | 39 | 96 | 29 | 1.34 |
| 2014 | 51 | 129 | 30 | 1.70 |
“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 report card (current framework), 31 March 2026
Safeguarding: Met
Inclusion: Strong standard
Curriculum and teaching: Expected standard
Achievement: Expected standard
Attendance and behaviour: Strong standard
Personal development and wellbeing: Expected standard
Early years: Expected standard
Leadership and governance: Expected standard
The current framework does not award an overall grade.
Ofsted's report for this school
Ofsted graded inspection (previous framework), 1 November 2023
Overall effectiveness: Requires improvement
Quality of education: Requires improvement
Behaviour and attitudes: Good
Personal development: Good
Leadership and management: Requires improvement
Early years: Requires improvement
Sixth form / post-16: 9
Ofsted's report for this school
Ofsted ungraded inspection, 15 July 2022
School remains Good (Concerns) - S5 Next
Ofsted's report for this school
Source: Ofsted: state-funded school inspections management information, checked 4 September 2026. All sources.
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 | 67.0% | 0.0% | 109.0 | 106.0 |
| 2023/24 | 60.0% | 3.0% | 108.0 | 107.0 |
| 2022/23 | 63.0% | 10.0% | 108.0 | 105.0 |
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 | 10.2 | 5.6 | 3.6 | 1.0 | 45.1% |
| 2023/24 | 7.3 | 5.1 | 0.0 | 2.2 | 30.1% |
| 2022/23 | 11.7 | 5.9 | 0.8 | 5.0 | 49.6% |
| 2021/22 | 11.2 | 8.0 | 2.2 | 1.0 | 28.6% |
| 2020/21 | 11.2 | 10.1 | 0.0 | 1.1 | 9.8% |
| 2019/20 | 11.5 | 10.1 | 1.4 | 0.0 | 12.2% |
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 Bishops Down Primary and Nursery School.
- The Wells Free School: 1.3 km (0.8 miles) east, Tunbridge Wells
- Southborough CofE Primary School: 1.8 km (1.1 miles) north, Tunbridge Wells
- St Augustine's Catholic Primary School: 1.9 km (1.2 miles) north-east, Tunbridge Wells
- St Barnabas CofE VA Primary School: 1.9 km (1.2 miles) east, Tunbridge Wells
- Speldhurst Church of England Voluntary Aided Primary School: 2.0 km (1.3 miles) north-west, Tunbridge Wells
- St John's Church of England Primary School: 2.1 km (1.3 miles) north-east, Tunbridge Wells
Nearby and related
- Other schools near Bishops Down Primary and Nursery School
- All schools in Kent
- Schools in the TN4 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.