The School Record

Grove Primary School

Primary school · Worcestershire

Pickersleigh Grove, Malvern, WR14 2LU

This school became an academy on 1 July 2025. Before that it was a community school, under its earlier school number, URN 135067.

Ofsted category of concern: Special measures

At its inspection on 15 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.

About the school

Type of school
Academy
Academy trust
Mercian Educational Trust
Became an academy
1 July 2025. Before that it was a community school, under its earlier school number, URN 135067.
Ages
3 to 11
Boys or girls
Boys and girls
Nursery classes
Yes
Website
https://www.groveprimarymalvern.co.uk
Telephone
01684 572516
School number (URN)
151298

Other schools run by Mercian Educational Trust

Mercian Educational Trust runs 5 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 Schools update their own entries, so these can be out of date.

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 Grove Primary School

Nursery 2 8, Reception 11, Y1 8, Y2 19, Y3 14, Y4 17, Y5 8, Y6 188Nursery 211Reception8Y119Y214Y317Y48Y518Y6
Source: Department for Education school census, January 2026.
Year groupChildren
Nursery 2 8
Reception 11
Year 1 8
Year 2 19
Year 3 14
Year 4 17
Year 5 8
Year 6 18

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

To ask about visiting the school, or anything else about it, contact the school. Website: https://www.groveprimarymalvern.co.uk. Telephone: 01684 572516.

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. Worcestershire'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, 10 families named Grove Primary School as their first preference, and the school made 10 offers.

That is 1.00 first preferences per place offered, higher than 54% of schools admitting at Reception in England that year.

More first preferences per place than 54% of comparable schools
Position among schools in England admitting at Reception, 2026 intake.

First preferences for this school changed little, from 10 a year in 2022–2023 to 10 in 2025–2026. Across all 179 schools in Worcestershire admitting at Reception, first preferences changed little over the same years, from 5,938 to 5,456.

Counts of families, not places.

Across Worcestershire as a whole, 94.0% 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 Worcestershire.

Compared with its own past

Fewer families than its recent average put this school first.

In 2026, 10 families put this school first. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 12 a year.

In 2026, 14 families named this school somewhere on their list. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 22 a year.

In 2026, every family who put this school first was offered a place here (10 of 10). In 2021 to 2025 it was 99 in every 100.

In 2026, 0 of the 10 offers went to children living outside Worcestershire. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 0 a year.

Some of the earlier years are from this school's record under its old school number.

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 Grove Primary School first, against the offers it made, for every intake year held.

First preferences from 19 in 2014 to 10 in 2026; Offers made from 39 in 2014 to 10 in 2026010203040502014201620182020202220242026Offers made10First preferences10
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 this school's earlier record, under its old school number (URN 135067), 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 10 14 10 1.00
2025
old school number		 9 15 9 -
2024
old school number		 9 17 9 -
2023
old school number		 14 20 25 0.56
2022
old school number		 7 23 23 0.30
2021
old school number		 21 34 28 0.75
2020
old school number		 14 25 15 0.93
2019
old school number		 19 27 20 0.95
2018
old school number		 16 24 21 0.76
2017
old school number		 17 26 19 0.89
2016
old school number		 17 26 42 0.40
2015
old school number		 24 31 43 0.56
2014
old school number		 19 27 39 0.49

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

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), 15 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
Requires improvement
Personal development
Requires improvement
Leadership and management
Inadequate
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 Worcestershire lodged 24 appeals about a primary school place.

18 of them were heard by a panel and 6 succeeded, which is about 33 in every 100 heard.

The other 6 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 11 infant class appeals heard in Worcestershire in 2026, 5 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 Worcestershire, 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 103 children here had an education, health and care plan. That is 6 in every 100. Across schools in England the middle figure is 4 in every 100.

A further 35 were on SEN support, which is help arranged by the school without a plan. That is 34 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, 57 of the 103 children here were known to be eligible for free school meals. That is 55 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 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 (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

Worcestershire publishes an admission zone for this school (Shared Northleigh and Grove Primary).

Covers: 23 live postcodes across 0.424 km².

11 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.

The school building sits outside this area. Sometimes that is normal, because the area is drawn around the streets a school serves rather than around the school itself. But it can also mean the area has been joined to the wrong school. Treat it with care.

Worcestershire publishes an admission zone for this school (Grove Primary).

Covers: 98 live postcodes across 1.519 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.

Worcestershire publishes an admission zone for this school (Shared Grove, Northleigh & Malvern Parish Primary).

Covers: 13 live postcodes across 0.276 km².

This zone overlaps others. An address here may also fall inside the catchment of Malvern Parish CofE Primary School and Northleigh CofE Primary School. Being in this catchment does not mean being in only this one.

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.

Shared with: Malvern Parish CofE Primary School, Northleigh CofE Primary School. The council publishes one area for these schools together, so the same streets belong to all of them.

The school building sits outside this area. Sometimes that is normal, because the area is drawn around the streets a school serves rather than around the school itself. But it can also mean the area has been joined to the wrong school. Treat it with care.

Where it is, and schools nearby

The shaded shape is the area the council published for Grove 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 Grove Primary 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.