The School Record

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

River Mead School

URN 139260 · Primary · Academy sponsor led · Wiltshire

Lowbourne, Melksham, SN12 7ED

Figures current as of 5 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, 28 families named River Mead School as their first preference, and the school made 28 offers.

That is 1.00 first preferences per place offered, which places it above 53% of schools admitting at Reception in England that year.

More first preferences per place than 53% 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 1.04 in 2021–2022 and 1.0 in 2024–2025.

Applications and offers at Reception, 12 intake years
Intake 1st preferences All preferences Offers made 1st prefs per place
2025 28 55 28 1.00
2024 19 32 19 1.00
2023 28 54 30 0.93
2022 35 66 30 1.17
2021 21 58 23 0.91
2020 23 37 27 0.85
2019 23 37 24 0.96
2018 19 38 22 0.86
2017 14 36 18 0.78
2016 24 36 28 0.86
2015 26 49 28 0.93
2014 22 36 39 0.56

“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), 1 October 2024

Overall effectiveness: Not judged

Quality of education: Good

Behaviour and attitudes: Good

Personal development: Good

Leadership and management: Outstanding

Early years: Good

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.

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.

Key stage 2 (end of primary)
Year Expected standard in reading, writing & maths Higher standard Average reading score Average maths score
2024/25 38.0% 6.0% 102.0 100.0
2023/24 41.0% 0.0% 105.0 99.0
2022/23 28.0% 0.0% 100.0 99.0

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 yearTeachers (FTE) Still there a year later Moved to another state school Left state schools Left in total
2024/25 14.3 14.3 0.0 0.0 0.0%
2023/24 14.4 12.8 0.0 1.6 11.1%
2022/23 13.9 10.6 0.0 3.3 23.7%
2021/22 13.1 10.4 2.0 0.7 20.6%
2020/21 13.7 8.1 3.6 2.0 40.9%
2019/20 13.3 12.2 0.4 0.7 8.3%

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

Wiltshire publishes an admission zone for this school (River Mead School, Melksham).

Covers: 270 live postcodes across 6.507 km².

This zone overlaps others. An address here may also fall inside the catchment of Forest and Sandridge Church of England Primary School, Shaw Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School and The Manor CofE VC Primary School. Being in this catchment does not mean being in only this one.

38 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

The shaded shape is the area the council published for River Mead 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 River Mead 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.