The School Record

The Mallard Academy

Primary school · Doncaster

Cedar Road, Doncaster, DN4 9HU

This school became an academy on 1 January 2025. Before that it was a community school, under Mallard Primary School (URN 134235).

Ofsted category of concern: Special measures

At its inspection on 1 October 2024 (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.

About the school

Type of school
Academy
Academy trust
Exceed Learning Partnership
Became an academy
1 January 2025. Before that it was a community school, under Mallard Primary School (URN 134235).
Ages
3 to 11
Boys or girls
Boys and girls
Nursery classes
Yes
Website
https://www.themallardacademy.co.uk/
Telephone
01302 859116
School number (URN)
150367

Other schools run by Exceed Learning Partnership

Exceed Learning Partnership runs 9 other schools with a page here.

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 Schools update their own entries, so these can be out of date.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 404 places and 333 children on roll.

71 places were unfilled, which is 18% of the school.

In 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 the school had 351 children on roll on average, against 333 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 The Mallard Academy

Nursery 1 4, Nursery 2 25, Reception 41, Y1 46, Y2 52, Y3 40, Y4 47, Y5 50, Y6 514Nursery 125Nursery 241Reception46Y152Y240Y347Y450Y551Y6
Source: Department for Education school census, January 2026.
Year groupChildren
Nursery 1 4
Nursery 2 25
Reception 41
Year 1 46
Year 2 52
Year 3 40
Year 4 47
Year 5 50
Year 6 51

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 Doncaster. 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 Doncaster 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://www.themallardacademy.co.uk/. Telephone: 01302 859116.

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, 31 families named The Mallard Academy as their first preference, and the school made 33 offers.

That is 0.94 first preferences per place offered, higher than 36% of schools admitting at Reception in England that year.

More first preferences per place than 36% of comparable schools
Position among schools in England admitting at Reception, 2026 intake.

First preferences for this school changed little, from 33 a year in 2021–2022 to 31 in 2024–2026. Across all 91 schools in Doncaster admitting at Reception, first preferences changed little over the same years, from 2,965 to 3,088.

Counts of families, not places.

Across Doncaster as a whole, 96.5% of families applying for a primary place for September 2026 were offered their first choice, and 98.8% 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 Doncaster.

Compared with its own past

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

In 2026, 31 families put this school first. In 2020 to 2024 the average was 32 a year.

In 2026, 42 families named this school somewhere on their list. In 2020 to 2024 the average was 43 a year.

In 2026, every family who put this school first was offered a place here (31 of 31). In 2020 to 2024 it was every family, every year.

In 2026, 0 of the 33 offers went to children living outside Doncaster. In 2020 to 2024 the average was 0 a year.

Some of the earlier years are for Mallard 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 The Mallard Academy first, against the offers it made, for every intake year held.

First preferences from 41 in 2014 to 31 in 2026; Offers made from 45 in 2014 to 33 in 20263040502014201620182020202220242026Offers made33First preferences31
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 2026 are from Mallard 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, 12 intake years
Intake 1st preferences1st choice All preferencesAny choice Offers madeOffers 1st prefs per placePer place
2026 31 42 33 0.94
2024
as Mallard Primary School		 31 39 33 0.94
2023
as Mallard Primary School		 35 42 35 1.00
2022
as Mallard Primary School		 32 41 34 0.94
2021
as Mallard Primary School		 34 49 34 1.00
2020
as Mallard Primary School		 30 45 38 0.79
2019
as Mallard Primary School		 35 44 42 0.83
2018
as Mallard Primary School		 36 46 38 0.95
2017
as Mallard Primary School		 35 51 37 0.95
2016
as Mallard Primary School		 43 69 46 0.93
2015
as Mallard Primary School		 39 55 40 0.97
2014
as Mallard Primary School		 41 57 45 0.91

“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 33 offers, and every one of them went to a family who had named it first.

2 offers went to families who named it fourth or lower, or who were 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), 1 October 2024

This inspection relates to a predecessor of the current school.

Category of concern: Special measures

Overall effectiveness
Not judged
Quality of education
Inadequate
Behaviour and attitudes
Requires improvement
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 Doncaster lodged 123 appeals about a primary school place.

56 of them were heard by a panel and 16 succeeded, which is about 29 in every 100 heard.

The other 67 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 33 infant class appeals heard in Doncaster in 2026, 7 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 Doncaster, 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, 13 of the 356 children here had an education, health and care plan. That is 4 in every 100. That is close to the middle for schools in England, where the middle figure is 4 in every 100.

A further 61 were on SEN support, which is help arranged by the school without a plan. That is 17 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, 134 of the 356 children here were known to be eligible for free school meals. That is 38 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 21 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 (end of primary)
Year Expected standard in reading, writing & maths Higher standard Average reading score Average maths score
2024/25 - - - -
2023/24 - - - -
2022/23 - - - -

Catchment area

Doncaster publishes an admission zone for this school (The Mallard Academy).

Covers: 130 live postcodes across 1.741 km².

16 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 The Mallard Academy. 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 The Mallard Academy.

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.