The School Record

Orchards Infant School

Primary school · West Sussex

Nelson Road, Worthing, BN12 6EN

This school became an academy on 1 January 2024. Before that it was a community school, under Field Place Infant School (URN 125864).

About the school

Type of school
Academy
Academy trust
Sparkle Multi-Academy Trust
Became an academy
1 January 2024. Before that it was a community school, under Field Place Infant School (URN 125864).
Ages
3 to 7
Boys or girls
Boys and girls
Nursery classes
Yes
Website
https://www.orchardsinfant.com/
Telephone
01903 700234
School number (URN)
150365

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 Schools update their own entries, so these can be out of date.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 360 places and 244 children on roll.

116 places were unfilled, which is 32% of the school.

In 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 the school had 245 children on roll on average, against 244 in 2024. Some of those years are from its record under an earlier school number.

Its places have grown from 300 in 2009 to 360 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 Orchards Infant School

Nursery 1 32, Nursery 2 12, Reception 71, Y1 89, Y2 7732Nursery 112Nursery 271Reception89Y177Y2
Source: Department for Education school census, January 2026.
Year groupChildren
Nursery 1 32
Nursery 2 12
Reception 71
Year 1 89
Year 2 77

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 West Sussex. 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 West Sussex 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 West Sussex, the council's own page explains how to apply there. West Sussex school admissions.

To ask about visiting the school, or anything else about it, contact the school. Website: https://www.orchardsinfant.com/. Telephone: 01903 700234.

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. West Sussex'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, 64 families named Orchards Infant School as their first preference, and the school made 67 offers.

That is 0.96 first preferences per place offered, higher than 42% of schools admitting at Reception in England that year.

More first preferences per place than 42% 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 0.94 in 2024 and 0.96 in 2026.

First preferences for this school rose 14%, from 54 a year in 2022–2023 to 62 in 2025–2026. Across all 213 schools in West Sussex admitting at Reception, first preferences changed little over the same years, from 8,799 to 8,302. The school also offered more places over these years, 58 a year in 2022–2023 and 64 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 West Sussex as a whole, 92.4% of families applying for a primary place for September 2026 were offered their first choice, and 99.2% 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 West Sussex.

Compared with its own past

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

In 2026, 64 families put this school first. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 64 a year.

In 2026, 157 families named this school somewhere on their list. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 155 a year.

In 2026, every family who put this school first was offered a place here (64 of 64). In 2021 to 2025 it was every family, every year.

In 2026, 0 of the 67 offers went to children living outside West Sussex. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 0 a year.

Some of the earlier years are for Field Place Infant 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 Orchards Infant School first, against the offers it made, for every intake year held.

First preferences from 88 in 2014 to 64 in 2026; Offers made from 90 in 2014 to 67 in 20264060801001202014201620182020202220242026Offers made67First preferences64
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 2024 are from Field Place Infant 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 64 157 67 0.96
2025 60 164 62 0.97
2024 80 164 85 0.94
2023
as Field Place Infant School		 42 134 43 0.98
2022
as Field Place Infant School		 67 163 74 0.91
2021
as Field Place Infant School		 70 149 74 0.95
2020
as Field Place Infant School		 61 141 63 0.97
2019
as Field Place Infant School		 71 160 80 0.89
2018
as Field Place Infant School		 69 173 85 0.81
2017
as Field Place Infant School		 75 155 97 0.77
2016
as Field Place Infant School		 65 148 80 0.81
2015
as Field Place Infant School		 76 194 102 0.75
2014
as Field Place Infant School		 88 171 90 0.98

“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 67 offers: 64 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), 21 September 2021

This inspection relates to a predecessor of the current school.

Overall effectiveness
Requires improvement
Quality of education
Requires improvement
Behaviour and attitudes
Requires improvement
Personal development
Requires improvement
Leadership and management
Requires improvement
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 West Sussex lodged 236 appeals about a primary school place.

139 of them were heard by a panel and 9 succeeded, which is about 6 in every 100 heard.

The other 97 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 122 infant class appeals heard in West Sussex 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 West Sussex, 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, 24 of the 281 children here had an education, health and care plan. That is 8 in every 100. Across schools in England the middle figure is 4 in every 100.

A further 40 were on SEN support, which is help arranged by the school without a plan. That is 14 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, 45 of the 281 children here were known to be eligible for free school meals. That is 16 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 15 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.

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 13.1 10.7 0.8 1.6 18.3%

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

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.

Where it is, and schools nearby

The 6 nearest primary schools we hold figures for, by straight-line distance from Orchards Infant 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.