Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Catholic Primary School - a Catholic Voluntary Academy

Q: How hard is it to get into Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Catholic Primary School - a Catholic Voluntary Academy?

In the 2026 intake Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Catholic Primary School - a Catholic Voluntary Academy received 58 first preferences and made 60 offers. That is 0.97 first preferences for every place. It describes demand. It does not indicate whether any particular child would be offered a place.

Q: Does Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Catholic Primary School - a Catholic Voluntary Academy have a catchment area?

We hold no published admission zone for this school. That is not the same as an address being outside one. We cannot say either way.

Primary school · York

Hamilton Drive, York, YO24 4JW

This school became an academy on 1 September 2019. Before that it was a voluntary aided school, under Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Roman Catholic Voluntary Aided Primary School (URN 136435).

First preferences per place, 2026 0.97
How many families named it first, for each place it gave out. Higher than 47% of schools admitting at Reception in England that year.
Offers made, 2026 60
Places given out on offer day. Not the number of places the school had, which is not published per year group.
Latest Ofsted Good
Ofsted graded inspection (previous framework), February 2024.

About the school

Type of school: Academy
Academy trust: Nicholas Postgate Catholic Academy Trust
Became an academy: 1 September 2019. Before that it was a voluntary aided school, under Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Roman Catholic Voluntary Aided Primary School (URN 136435).
Ages: 3 to 11
Boys or girls: Boys and girls
Religious character: Roman Catholic, Diocese of Middlesbrough
Nursery classes: Yes
Website: https://olqm.npcat.org.uk/
Telephone: 01904 806093
School number (URN): 147436

How big the school is

In 2024 this school had 420 places and 373 children on roll.

47 places were unfilled, which is 11% of the school.

In 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 the school had 384 children on roll on average, against 373 in 2024. Some of those years are from its record under an earlier school number.

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 Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Catholic Primary School - a Catholic Voluntary Academy

Source: Department for Education school census, January 2026.

Year group	Children
Nursery 1	10
Nursery 2	46
Reception	51
Year 1	45
Year 2	43
Year 3	39
Year 4	62
Year 5	59
Year 6	60

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 York. 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 academy trust, rather than York 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.

To ask about visiting the school, or anything else about it, contact the school. Website: https://olqm.npcat.org.uk/. Telephone: 01904 806093.

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. 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, 58 families named Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Catholic Primary School - a Catholic Voluntary Academy as their first preference, and the school made 60 offers.

That is 0.97 first preferences per place offered, higher than 47% of schools admitting at Reception in England that year.

Position among schools in England admitting at Reception, 2026 intake.

Little change in first preferences per place. Across the 5 most recent years held, first preferences per place averaged 0.96 in 2022–2023 and 0.97 in 2025–2026.

First preferences for this school rose 45%, from 38 a year in 2022–2023 to 54 in 2025–2026. Across all 48 schools in York admitting at Reception, first preferences changed little over the same years, from 1,669 to 1,570. The school also offered more places over these years, 39 a year in 2022–2023 and 56 in 2025–2026, which is why the figure per place can move the other way from the count of families.

Counts of families, not places.

Across York as a whole, 94.1% of families applying for a primary place for September 2026 were offered their first choice, and 99.0% 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 York.

Compared with its own past

More families than its recent average put this school first.

In 2026, 58 families put this school first. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 44 a year.

In 2026, 113 families named this school somewhere on their list. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 82 a year.

In 2026, 98 in every 100 families who put this school first were offered a place here (57 of 58). In 2021 to 2025 it was every family, every year.

In 2026, 0 of the 60 offers went to children living outside York. 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 Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Catholic Primary School - a Catholic Voluntary Academy first, against the offers it made, for every intake year held.

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.

Figures before 2020 are from Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Roman Catholic Voluntary Aided Primary School, the school this one replaced, before it became an academy. The government's school register links the two, and they are the same school.

Applications and offers at Reception, 13 intake years
Intake	1st preferences1st choice	All preferencesAny choice	Offers madeOffers	1st prefs per placePer place
2026	58	113	60	0.97
2025	51	83	52	0.98
2024	38	80	41	0.93
2023	43	81	44	0.98
2022	32	66	34	0.94
2021	57	101	59	0.97
2020	59	103	61	0.97
2019 as Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Roman Catholic Voluntary Aided Primary School	60	97	60	1.00
2018 as Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Roman Catholic Voluntary Aided Primary School	60	107	60	1.00
2017 as Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Roman Catholic Voluntary Aided Primary School	52	112	59	0.88
2016 as Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Roman Catholic Voluntary Aided Primary School	40	81	43	0.93
2015 as Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Roman Catholic Voluntary Aided Primary School	58	104	60	0.97
2014 as Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Roman Catholic Voluntary Aided Primary School	63	126	60	1.05

“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 60 offers: 57 to families who had named it first and 3 to families 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), 6 February 2024

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

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 York lodged 17 appeals about a primary school place.

10 of them were heard by a panel and 4 succeeded, which is about 40 in every 100 heard.

The other 7 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 York in 2026, 1 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 York, 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, 6 of the 415 children here had an education, health and care plan. That is 1 in every 100. Across schools in England the middle figure is 4 in every 100.

A further 46 were on SEN support, which is help arranged by the school without a plan. That is 11 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, 14 of the 415 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 not the first language for 16 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.

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: what these numbers are made of

Reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and maths.

Across the 3 years published, this measure ran from 60% in 2022 to 67% in 2023, a difference of 7 points.

Year 6 had 60 children, so one child is worth about 1.7 percentage points and that difference is about 4 children.

Half of schools in England move by 13 points or more across the same three years, so movement on this scale is ordinary rather than a sign of anything.

Key stage 2 (end of primary)
Year	Expected standard in reading, writing & maths	Higher standard	Average reading score	Average maths score
2024/25	61.0%	0.0%	107.0	105.0
2023/24	67.0%	10.0%	108.0	107.0
2022/23	60.0%	13.0%	106.0	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.

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.

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 year	Teachers (FTE)	Still there a year later	Moved to another state school	Left state schools	Left in total
2024/25	15.9	13.8	1.0	1.2	13.8%
2023/24	18.8	14.8	3.0	1.0	21.3%
2022/23	19.5	15.6	0.0	3.9	20.0%
2021/22	17.5	12.6	0.0	4.9	28.0%
2020/21	16.7	13.3	0.0	3.4	20.4%
2019/20	17.7	16.0	0.0	1.7	9.6%

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.

How places were allocated

York publishes these figures on national offer day, the day families are told which school their child has been given. It is the only place that says how the school chose between the children who applied.