St Mary's CofE First School & Nursery

Academy converter·First school Ferndown, Dorset·BH22 0JF

School type

First school

Ages 2–9

Key Stage 2 performance

St Mary's CofE First School & Nursery is a first school for pupils aged 2–9. Pupils move on to a separate junior or middle school before Year 6, so the school does not enter pupils for the Key Stage 2 SATs and has no KS2 results to publish.

This applies to every first school in England — it does not mean data is missing. Ofsted judgements and school information are shown below.

Getting a place

Offered a place after putting it first

91%

32 first choices, 29 places

First choices per place

1.10

more first choices than places

Applications naming the school

any preference, for 29 places

First preferences per place, last five years▲ 0.34

00.511.5

1 per place

1.2320220.7020230.9520240.7620251.102026

Red dashed line = one first choice per place. How to read this

We do not have a checked cut-off distance for St Mary's CofE First School & Nursery yet. Dorset does publish allocation figures and we are working through them council by council — we only show a distance once we have found it in the council’s own document.

Application figures: DfE, school level applications and offers (2026 intake).

Ofsted judgements

Legacy framework · Read full report ↗

Quality of education

Good

Behaviour and attitudes

Good

Personal development

Good

Leadership and management

Good

Safeguarding effective?

Yes

Early years provision

Good

School profile

Age range: 2–9
Pupils on roll: 136
Gender: Mixed
Religious character: Church of England

Pupil background

% FSM ever-6

21.9%

Typical primary: 21.5%

% EAL

1.5%

Typical primary: 9.6%

Special educational needs

% SEN support

12.5%

Typical primary: 14.3%

% with an EHC plan

2.2%

Typical primary: 3.0%

Attendance

Overall absence

5.7%

Typical primary: 5.3%

Persistently absent

13.4%

Typical primary: 13.3%

Staffing & funding

Pupils per teacher

18.3

Typical primary: 20.7

Spend per pupil

£7,221

Typical primary: £6,960

“Typical” = the median primary school in England. What this means

Nearby primary schools

West Moors Middle School Ferndown · 0.9 mi 50.5 Ferndown Middle School Ferndown · 1.9 mi 30.4 Emmanuel Church of England Middle School Verwood · 3.0 mi 53.9 St Ives Primary & Nursery School Ringwood · 3.0 mi 73.7 St Michael's Church of England Middle School, Colehill Wimborne · 3.6 mi 53.9 Allenbourn Middle School Wimborne · 4.7 mi 53.5 Cranborne Middle School Wimborne · 6.5 mi 51.6 Lockyer's Middle School Wimborne · 6.6 mi 65.7

Location

Official sources

Latest Ofsted report reports.ofsted.gov.uk DfE Compare School Performance compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk GIAS school details get-information-schools.service.gov.uk

About St Mary's CofE First School & Nursery

St Mary's CofE First School & Nursery is a primary school in Ferndown, Dorset, classified by the DfE as a converter academy with a Church of England religious character. Around 136 pupils aged 2 to 9 attend the school.

Competition for places is real here - 91% of first-choice applicants were offered a Reception place for September 2026 (32 first choices for 29 places). Overall pupil absence was 5.7%. There are about 18.3 pupils per teacher. St Mary's CofE First School & Nursery does not currently have a recent graded Ofsted judgement on record (often the case for newer or recently converted schools), so it is worth asking when its next inspection is expected. This overview is generated automatically from the latest published DfE performance tables and Ofsted data; figures are rounded, and you can check the originals via the official links above.