Broomhaugh (VA) Church of England First School

Primary school · Northumberland

Church Lane, Riding Mill, NE44 6DR

About the school

Type of school
Voluntary aided school
Federation
The Federation of Broomhaugh and Corbridge Church of England First Schools
Ages
5 to 9
Boys or girls
Boys and girls
Religious character
Church of England, Diocese of Newcastle
Website
https://www.broomhaugh.northumberland.sch.uk
Telephone
01434 682374
School number (URN)
122285

From Get Information about Schools, retrieved 2 September 2026. Schools update their own entries, so these can be out of date.

How big the school is

In 2024 this school had 75 places and 65 children on roll.

10 places were unfilled, which is 13% of the school.

In 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 the school had 68 children on roll on average, against 65 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.

Children in each year group at Broomhaugh (VA) Church of England First School

Reception 15, Y1 9, Y2 17, Y3 11, Y4 1215Reception9Y117Y211Y312Y4
Source: Department for Education school census, January 2026.
Year groupChildren
Reception 15
Year 1 9
Year 2 17
Year 3 11
Year 4 12

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, so a year group that looked two under in January can be full by March.

If you are moving into the area and need a place during the school year, ask Northumberland. Councils handle applications made during the school year, including for schools that set their own admission rules. They hold the up-to-date position, which this page does not.

Who decides who gets a place

This school sets its own admission rules, through its governing body, usually with a diocese, rather than Northumberland setting them.

Look on the school's own website for its admission arrangements. An admission authority has to agree its rules every year and publish them. The council still takes the application.

Taken from the kind of school this is, as recorded by the Department for Education. We do not hold this school's rules themselves: 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.

If you live in Northumberland, the council's own page explains how to apply there. Northumberland school admissions.

To ask about visiting the school, or anything else about it, contact the school. Website: https://www.broomhaugh.northumberland.sch.uk. Telephone: 01434 682374.

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. GOV.UK link checked 23 September 2026. Northumberland's page checked 29 September 2026. Contact details from Get Information about Schools.

How many families applied

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

In the 2026 intake, 10 families named Broomhaugh (VA) Church of England First School as their first preference, and the school made 11 offers.

That is 0.91 first preferences per place offered, higher than 25% of schools admitting at Reception in England that year.

More first preferences per place than 25% of comparable schools
Position among schools in England admitting at Reception, 2026 intake.

Little change in first preferences per place. Across the 3 most recent years held, first preferences per place averaged 1.0 in 2023 and 0.91 in 2026.

Across Northumberland as a whole, 96.8% of families applying for a primary place for September 2026 were offered their first choice, and 98.6% were offered one of the three schools they named. That is a figure for the council, not for this school. How the 2026 round went in Northumberland.

Compared with its own past

About the same number of families as its recent average put this school first.

In 2026, 10 families put this school first. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 11 a year.

In 2026, 22 families named this school somewhere on their list. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 23 a year.

In 2026, every family who put this school first was offered a place here (10 of 10). In 2021 to 2025 it was every family, every year.

In 2026, 1 of the 11 offers went to a child living outside Northumberland. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 1 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.

First preferences and offers at Reception

Families naming Broomhaugh (VA) Church of England First School first, against the offers it made, for every intake year held.

First preferences from 17 in 2014 to 10 in 2026; Offers made from 15 in 2014 to 11 in 202601020302014201620182020202220242026Offers made11First preferences10
Source: Department for Education, school-level applications and offers. Preferences count families. Offers count places given out on offer day. The vertical axis does not start at zero.
Applications and offers at Reception, 13 intake years
Intake 1st preferences1st choice All preferencesAny choice Offers madeOffers 1st prefs per placePer place
2026 10 22 11 0.91
2025 13 19 13 1.00
2024 7 18 7 -
2023 10 28 10 1.00
2022 9 25 9 -
2021 15 25 15 1.00
2020 13 38 12 1.08
2019 12 24 12 1.00
2018 20 36 15 1.33
2017 5 14 5 -
2016 15 27 15 1.00
2015 6 22 6 -
2014 17 25 15 1.13

“Offers made” is the number of offers on offer day, not the number of places the school has.

Source: Department for Education: school-level applications and offers, checked 14 September 2026. All sources.

Where families put this school on their list

In 2026 this school made 11 offers: 10 to families who had named it first and 1 to a family who named it second.

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, paragraphs 1.9 and 2.11.

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), 22 November 2023

Overall effectiveness
Good
Quality of education
Good
Behaviour and attitudes
Good
Personal development
Outstanding
Leadership and management
Good
Early years
Outstanding

Ofsted's report for this school

Source: Ofsted: state-funded school inspections management information, checked 14 September 2026. All sources.

If you are refused a place

In 2026, families in Northumberland lodged 41 appeals about a primary school place.

24 of them were heard by a panel and 7 succeeded, which is about 29 in every 100 heard.

The other 17 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 3 infant class appeals heard in Northumberland in 2026, 3 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 Northumberland, not this school. Nobody publishes appeal figures school by school.

Source: Department for Education, admission appeals in England, reporting year 2026.

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, paragraph 2.15.

Children with special educational needs

In January 2026, 3 of the 64 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 8 were on SEN support, which is help arranged by the school without a plan. That is 12 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, 2 of the 64 children here were known to be eligible for free school meals. That is 3 in every 100.

Fewer children are eligible here than at half of primary schools in England, where the middle figure is 20 in every 100.

English was the first language for nearly every child 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.

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.

The share of teachers who left, each year

Counted as full-time jobs rather than people, and counting a move to another state school as leaving this one.

2019 52.4%, 2020 28.6%, 2021 66.7%, 2022 31.2%, 2023 18.8%, 2024 0.0%52.4%201928.6%202066.7%202131.2%202218.8%20230.0%2024
Source: Department for Education, School Workforce Census. The year shown is the census year; leaving is measured by where the teacher was a year later. A small school's figure moves a long way on one or two people.
Census yearTeachers (FTE) Still there a year later Moved to another state school Left state schools Left in total
2024/25 3.1 3.1 0.0 0.0 0.0%
2023/24 3.2 2.6 0.0 0.6 18.8%
2022/23 3.2 2.2 1.0 0.0 31.2%
2021/22 4.2 1.4 2.2 0.6 66.7%
2020/21 4.2 3.0 1.2 0.0 28.6%
2019/20 4.2 2.0 1.0 1.2 52.4%

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

Northumberland publishes an admission zone for this school (Broomhaugh First).

Covers: 89 live postcodes across 25.386 km².

6 of the postcodes in this zone sit within 50 m of its edge. We place an address by its postcode centroid, not the address itself, so for those a specific house may fall the other side of the line.

Where it is, and schools nearby

The shaded shape is the area the council published for Broomhaugh (VA) Church of England First School. Living inside it is not the same as being offered a place. Councils use these areas in different ways. Some use them to help decide who gets a place when a school is full. Some use them to decide who gets free school transport. Many use them for both. Check with the council which it is here. The edge is drawn to about 20 metres, so do not use it to judge a single house.

The 6 nearest primary schools we hold figures for, by straight-line distance from Broomhaugh (VA) Church of England First School.

Nearby and related

Where these figures come from

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. We collect these figures from official publications and check them, but mistakes can get through. If you find one, tell us.

Figures current as of 14 September 2026.

This page was updated on 5 November 2026. "Retrieved" is the date of our copy of each source, not the year its figures describe. How we compare schools.