Bankwood Primary School
Primary school · Sheffield
Bankwood Close, Sheffield, S14 1LW
This school became an academy on 1 April 2023. Before that it was a community school, under Bankwood Community Primary School (URN 107066).
Ofsted category of concern: Special measures
At its inspection on 2 March 2022 (Ofsted graded inspection (previous framework)), this school was placed in the category special measures.
Ofsted judged the school to be failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education, and not to have the capacity to make the necessary improvements without help.
This is about that one inspection. Schools do come out of these categories. This page does not tell you where the school stands today. Check that with Ofsted.
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First preferences per place, 2026
0.94
How many families named it first, for each place it gave out. Higher than 37% of schools admitting at Reception in England that year.
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Offers made, 2026
35
Places given out on offer day. Not the number of places the school had, which is not published per year group.
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Latest Ofsted
Inadequate
Ofsted graded inspection (previous framework), March 2022.
About the school
- Type of school
- Academy
- Academy trust
- Steel City Schools Partnership
- Became an academy
- 1 April 2023. Before that it was a community school, under Bankwood Community Primary School (URN 107066).
- Ages
- 2 to 11
- Boys or girls
- Boys and girls
- Nursery classes
- Yes
- Website
- https://www.bankwoodprimary.co.uk
- Telephone
- 0114 239 6711
- School number (URN)
- 149575
Other schools run by Steel City Schools Partnership
Steel City Schools Partnership runs 7 other schools with a page here.
- Woodseats Primary School, Sheffield (1.3 miles away)
- Greenhill Primary School, Sheffield (2.4 miles away)
- Fox Hill Primary, Sheffield (5.6 miles away)
- Mansel Primary, Sheffield (5.7 miles away)
- Monteney Primary School, Sheffield (5.8 miles away)
- Windmill Hill Primary School, Sheffield (7.4 miles away)
- Lound Infant School, Sheffield (7.8 miles away)
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 Schools update their own entries, so these can be out of date.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 420 places and 384 children on roll.
36 places were unfilled, which is 9% of the school.
In 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 the school had 358 children on roll on average, against 384 in 2024. Some of those years are from its record under an earlier school number.
Its places have grown from 378 in 2009 to 420 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 Bankwood Primary School
| Year group | Children |
|---|---|
| Early 2 | 6 |
| Nursery 1 | 25 |
| Nursery 2 | 34 |
| Reception | 51 |
| Year 1 | 42 |
| Year 2 | 55 |
| Year 3 | 56 |
| Year 4 | 57 |
| Year 5 | 58 |
| Year 6 | 58 |
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 Sheffield. 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 Sheffield 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 Sheffield, the council's own page explains how to apply there. Sheffield school admissions.
To ask about visiting the school, or anything else about it, contact the school. Website: https://www.bankwoodprimary.co.uk. Telephone: 0114 239 6711.
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. Sheffield'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, 33 families named Bankwood Primary School as their first preference, and the school made 35 offers.
That is 0.94 first preferences per place offered, higher than 37% of schools admitting at Reception in England that year.
Little change in first preferences per place. Across the 3 most recent years held, first preferences per place averaged 0.91 in 2024 and 0.94 in 2026.
First preferences for this school fell 18%, from 46 a year in 2022–2023 to 38 in 2025–2026. Across all 121 schools in Sheffield admitting at Reception, first preferences changed little over the same years, from 5,722 to 5,371. The school also offered fewer places over these years, 51 a year in 2022–2023 and 40 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 Sheffield as a whole, 95.1% of families applying for a primary place for September 2026 were offered their first choice, and 98.9% 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 Sheffield.
Compared with its own past
Fewer families than its recent average put this school first.
In 2026, 33 families put this school first. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 40 a year.
In 2026, 49 families named this school somewhere on their list. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 49 a year.
In 2026, every family who put this school first was offered a place here (33 of 33). In 2021 to 2025 it was every family, every year.
In 2026, 0 of the 35 offers went to children living outside Sheffield. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 0 a year.
Some of the earlier years are for Bankwood Community Primary School, the school this one replaced.
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 Bankwood Primary School first, against the offers it made, for every intake year held.
Figures before 2024 are from Bankwood Community 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.
| Intake | 1st preferences1st choice | All preferencesAny choice | Offers madeOffers | 1st prefs per placePer place |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 33 | 49 | 35 | 0.94 |
| 2025 | 42 | 47 | 45 | 0.93 |
| 2024 | 30 | 37 | 33 | 0.91 |
| 2023 as Bankwood Community Primary School |
49 | 56 | 52 | 0.94 |
| 2022 as Bankwood Community Primary School |
42 | 56 | 50 | 0.84 |
| 2021 as Bankwood Community Primary School |
39 | 51 | 54 | 0.72 |
| 2020 as Bankwood Community Primary School |
47 | 69 | 60 | 0.78 |
| 2019 as Bankwood Community Primary School |
58 | 88 | 60 | 0.97 |
| 2018 as Bankwood Community Primary School |
54 | 74 | 60 | 0.90 |
| 2017 as Bankwood Community Primary School |
34 | 52 | 41 | 0.83 |
| 2016 as Bankwood Community Primary School |
33 | 46 | 37 | 0.89 |
| 2015 as Bankwood Community Primary School |
48 | 66 | 60 | 0.80 |
| 2014 as Bankwood Community Primary School |
22 | 51 | 30 | 0.73 |
“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 35 offers: 33 to families who had named it first and 1 to a family who named it second.
1 offer went to a family who named it fourth or lower, or who was admitted another way.
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), 2 March 2022
This inspection relates to a predecessor of the current school.
Category of concern: Special measures
- Overall effectiveness
- Inadequate
- Quality of education
- Inadequate
- Behaviour and attitudes
- Inadequate
- Personal development
- Requires improvement
- Leadership and management
- Inadequate
- Early years
- Inadequate
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 Sheffield lodged 186 appeals about a primary school place.
127 of them were heard by a panel and 38 succeeded, which is about 30 in every 100 heard.
The other 59 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 52 infant class appeals heard in Sheffield 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 Sheffield, 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, 22 of the 442 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 89 were on SEN support, which is help arranged by the school without a plan. That is 20 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, 284 of the 442 children here were known to be eligible for free school meals. That is 64 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 44 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 2 years published, this measure ran from 24% in 2023 to 54% in 2024, a difference of 30 points.
Year 6 had 58 children, so one child is worth about 1.7 percentage points and that difference is about 18 children.
Half of schools in England move by 13 points or more across the same three years.
| Year | Expected standard in reading, writing & maths | Higher standard | Average reading score | Average maths score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024/25 | 54.0% | 0.0% | 102.0 | 101.0 |
| 2023/24 | 24.0% | 0.0% | 96.0 | 97.0 |
| 2022/23 | - | - | - | - |
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.
| Census year | Teachers (FTE) | Still there a year later | Moved to another state school | Left state schools | Left in total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024/25 | 20.6 | 19.6 | 1.0 | 0.0 | 4.9% |
| 2023/24 | 20.4 | 17.6 | 1.8 | 1.0 | 13.7% |
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
Sheffield publishes an admission zone for this school (Bankwood Community Primary School), in force from 2025.
Covers: 88 live postcodes across 1.254 km².
10 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 Bankwood Primary 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 Bankwood Primary School.
- Arbourthorne Community Primary School: 0.8 km (0.5 miles) north, Sheffield
- Carfield Primary School: 1.1 km (0.7 miles) west, Sheffield
- Norfolk Community Primary School: 1.5 km (0.9 miles) north, Sheffield
- Woodlands Primary School: 1.5 km (0.9 miles) south-east, Sheffield
- Anns Grove Primary School: 1.6 km (1.0 miles) north-west, Sheffield
- Mundella Primary School: 1.6 km (1.0 miles) south-west, Sheffield
Nearby and related
- Other schools near Bankwood Primary School
- All schools in Sheffield
- Schools in the S14 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, address, contact details and how it is run
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
- Ofsted: state-funded school inspections management information. Inspection outcomes, published monthly
Retrieved 14 September 2026 - Department for Education: school-level applications and offers. Preferences and offers, 2014 to 2026 intakes
Retrieved 14 September 2026 - Department for Education: school pupils and their characteristics. Children in each year group, January 2026 census
- Department for Education: school capacity. Places and pupils on roll, 2009 to 2024
- 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 - Sheffield: school admission zones. arcgis fetch 2026-09-05
Retrieved 5 September 2026
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.