# The Gainsborough Charles Baines Community Primary School URN 120492, Primary, Community school, Lincolnshire. Baines Road, Gainsborough, DN21 1TE. This page states what happened. It publishes no score, no ranking and no prediction, and nothing here says whether a particular child would be offered a place. This is information only, not advice. It may have mistakes in it, or be out of date. Check with the school and the council before you decide anything. Figures current as of 14 September 2026. ## About the school - Type of school: Community school, run by the council - Ages: 4 to 11 - Boys or girls: Boys and girls - Nursery classes: No - Website: http://www.charles-baines.lincs.sch.uk - Telephone: 01427 613812 - School number (URN): 120492 From Get Information about Schools. Schools update their own entries, so these can be out of date. ## How big the school is In 2024 this school had 210 places and 201 children on roll. 9 places were unfilled, which is 4% of the school. In 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 the school had 202 children on roll on average, against 201 in 2024. Places are the whole school added up, every year group together. That is not the number of places a school offers to new children in one year. Source: Department for Education school capacity collection. ## Children in each year group As counted on one day in January 2026, the most recent school census. These are children, not places. | Year group | Children | |---|---:| | Reception | 22 | | Year 1 | 24 | | Year 2 | 29 | | Year 3 | 30 | | Year 4 | 29 | | Year 5 | 26 | | Year 6 | 29 | **This is not a list of spare places.** Places per year group are not published, and the count is from January. Children join and leave all year. To ask about a place during the school year, contact Lincolnshire, which handles applications made in-year. They hold the up-to-date position and this page does not. ## Who decides who gets a place Lincolnshire sets the admission rules for this school, as it does for all its community and voluntary controlled schools. Look for Lincolnshire's admission arrangements. An admission authority has to agree its rules every year and publish them. Taken from the kind of school this is, as recorded by the Department for Education. The rules themselves are not reproduced here: a summary of an admission rule is not the rule, and only the admission authority's own published arrangements are binding. ## How to apply Applications for a place starting in September 2027 close on 15 January 2027, the date the School Admissions Code sets for every council in England. Councils send every offer for primary school places on the same day, 16 April 2027 or the next working day. You apply through the council where you live, even for a school in another area. You do not apply to the school. Find your council's primary school application on GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/apply-for-primary-school-place If you live in Lincolnshire, the council's own page explains how to apply there. https://www.lincolnshire.gov.uk/school-admissions/apply-school/2 To ask about visiting the school, or anything else about it, contact the school. http://www.charles-baines.lincs.sch.uk, 01427 613812. Links and dates can change. Your council's own website has the final word. The dates are set nationally by the School Admissions Code 2021 (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-admissions-code--2). GOV.UK link checked 23 September 2026. ## How many families applied In the 2026 intake, 14 families named this school as their first preference, and it made 14 offers. That is 1.00 first preferences per place offered, at Reception. This describes demand. It is not a pass rate and not a prediction. Little change in first preferences per place. Across the 5 most recent years held, first preferences per place averaged 1.07 in 2022–2023 and 0.98 in 2025–2026. First preferences for this school fell 43%, from 32 a year in 2022–2023 to 18 in 2025–2026. Across all 269 schools in Lincolnshire admitting at Reception, first preferences changed little over the same years, from 6,803 to 6,498. The school also offered fewer places over these years, 30 a year in 2022–2023 and 18 in 2025–2026, which is why the figure per place can move the other way from the count of families. Across Lincolnshire as a whole, 96.3% of families applying for a primary place for September 2026 were offered their first choice, and 99.7% were offered one of the three schools they named. That is a figure for the council, not for this school. ### Compared with its own past Fewer families than its recent average put this school first. In 2026, 14 families put this school first. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 27 a year. In 2026, 41 families named this school somewhere on their list. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 48 a year. In 2026, every family who put this school first was offered a place here (14 of 14). In 2021 to 2025 it was 98 in every 100. In 2026, 0 of the 14 offers went to children living outside Lincolnshire. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 0 a year. Each figure is compared only with the same figure at this school. "About the same" means within 10 in every 100 of the average. | Intake year | First preferences | Offers made | First preferences per place | |---|---:|---:|---:| | 2026 | 14 | 14 | 1.00 | | 2025 | 22 | 23 | 0.96 | | 2024 | 21 | 21 | 1.00 | | 2023 | 34 | 30 | 1.13 | | 2022 | 29 | 29 | 1.00 | | 2021 | 28 | 28 | 1.00 | | 2020 | 23 | 24 | 0.96 | | 2019 | 26 | 26 | 1.00 | | 2018 | 32 | 30 | 1.07 | | 2017 | 35 | 30 | 1.17 | | 2016 | 28 | 30 | 0.93 | | 2015 | 35 | 30 | 1.17 | | 2014 | 43 | 30 | 1.43 | ## Where families put this school on their list In 2026 this school made 14 offers, and every one of them went to a family who had named it first. A school is not allowed to treat a family differently because of where it sat on their list. The School Admissions Code says an admission authority must not give extra priority to children whose parents rank preferred schools in a particular order. The order is used at the end, by the council, and not by the school. Where more than one school could take a child, the council offers the one the family put highest. Leaving the other boxes empty does not change how this school considers an application. If none of the schools a family names can offer a place, the council has to offer one at a school that has room, and that school may be further away. Source: Department for Education, school level applications and offers, and the School Admissions Code 2021 (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-admissions-code--2). ## Catchment area We hold no published admission area for this school. That is not the same as an address being outside one. We cannot say either way. ## If you are refused a place In 2026, families in Lincolnshire lodged 112 appeals about a primary school place. 71 of them were heard by a panel and 18 succeeded, which is about 25 in every 100 heard. The other 41 did not reach a panel. Most appeals that do not are withdrawn because a place comes up first. Reception is an infant class, and the law caps an infant class at 30 children. A panel hearing an appeal about an infant class can only agree in three situations: the place was refused by mistake, the admission rules were not applied properly, or the decision was one no reasonable council would have made. It cannot simply decide that the child should have the place. Of the 33 infant class appeals heard in Lincolnshire in 2026, 8 succeeded. This is a record of decisions already made. A panel hears one case at a time and decides it on what that family sets out, so these figures do not indicate what would happen in any particular appeal. These count appeals about every school in Lincolnshire, not this school. Nobody publishes appeal figures school by school. Source: Department for Education, admission appeals in England. ## Waiting lists Being refused a place does not end the application. Every admission authority has to keep a waiting list until at least 31 December of the school year the child would have started, and some keep them for longer. A waiting list is not a queue. The rules say a child cannot be given priority for having joined it earlier, or for having applied earlier. The list is put back in order against the school's own admission rules every time a child is added, so a place can move further away as well as nearer. Councils differ on whether a refused child goes onto the list automatically. The council that sent the refusal is the only place that can say which it does. From the School Admissions Code 2021 (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-admissions-code--2), paragraph 2.15. ## Children with special educational needs In January 2026, 9 of the 189 children here had an education, health and care plan. That is 5 in every 100. Across schools in England the middle figure is 4 in every 100. A further 45 were on SEN support, which is help arranged by the school without a plan. That is 24 in every 100, against a middle figure of 15 in every 100 across England. A school named in a child's education, health and care plan has to admit that child. That duty holds even when the school is full, and it sits outside the rules that decide who gets a place when there are more children than places. Which school is named is decided with the council while the plan is being written, not through the normal application. Source: Department for Education, special educational needs in England, January 2026 census. ## Who goes to this school In January 2026, 97 of the 189 children here were known to be eligible for free school meals. That is 51 in every 100. More children are eligible here than at half of primary schools in England, where the middle figure is 20 in every 100. English was not the first language for 3 in every 100 children here. Across primary schools the middle figure is 10 in every 100. This describes the children who go to this school. It is not a measure of the school. Most children go to a school near home, so it is mostly a fact about the streets around it. This matters when reading results. Across the 15,153 schools we hold 2024 key stage 2 results for, the fifth with the fewest eligible children averaged 70% reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and maths. The fifth with the most averaged 48%. Those are averages of many schools all over the country. This school's own results are further down this page exactly as published. Source: Department for Education school census, January 2026. Free school meal eligibility is counted for every pupil on roll. ## Results ### Key stage 2: what these numbers are made of Reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and maths. Across the 3 years published, this measure ran from 41% in 2022 to 57% in 2024, a difference of 16 points. Year 6 had 29 children, so one child is worth about 3.4 percentage points and that difference is about 5 children. Half of schools in England move by 13 points or more across the same three years. A percentage of a group this small says more about which children happened to be in it than about the teaching. Withheld figures are shown as a dash, never as zero. Progress measures are estimates and are published by the government with a 95% confidence interval. Key stage 2, 2024: 57.0% reached the expected standard in reading, writing and maths. Key stage 2, 2023: 41.0% reached the expected standard in reading, writing and maths. Key stage 2, 2022: 41.0% reached the expected standard in reading, writing and maths. ## Where these figures come from - Department for Education: Get Information about Schools. School identity, type, phase, address, contact details and how it is run. https://get-information-schools.service.gov.uk/. Retrieved 2 September 2026. - GOV.UK: apply for a school place. Where to find your council's primary school application. Link checked 23 September 2026. https://www.gov.uk/apply-for-primary-school-place - Ofsted: state-funded school inspections management information. Inspection outcomes, published monthly. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/monthly-management-information-ofsteds-school-inspections-outcomes. Retrieved 14 September 2026. - Department for Education: school-level applications and offers. Preferences and offers, 2014 to 2026 intakes. https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/primary-and-secondary-school-applications-and-offers. Retrieved 14 September 2026. - Department for Education: school pupils and their characteristics. Children in each year group, January 2026 census. https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-pupils-and-their-characteristics - Department for Education: school capacity. Places and pupils on roll, 2009 to 2024. https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-capacity - Department for Education: key stage 2 attainment. Reading, writing and maths outcomes, by school. https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/key-stage-2-attainment. Retrieved 4 September 2026. - Department for Education: school workforce in England. Teacher turnover, by school, from the School Workforce Census. https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-workforce-in-england. Retrieved 4 September 2026. "Retrieved" is the date of our copy of each source, not the year its figures describe. ## Using this information This is information only, not advice. It may have mistakes in it, or be out of date. Check with the school and the council before you decide anything. Full page: /school/120492/the-gainsborough-charles-baines-community-primary-school Same figures as JSON: /school/120492.json