Shefford Lower School
Primary · Shefford · SG17 5XA
Earlier grade, confirmed by a later ungraded inspection
Ofsted's most recent (ungraded) visit confirmed the school remains Good. Ungraded inspections do not award a new grade.
Inspected 5 May 2023
Read the Ofsted report ↗At a glance
514 pupils · 114% of 450 capacity (over capacity)
- School type
- Community school
- Age range
- 3–9
- Gender
- Mixed
- Free school meals
- 14% of pupils
- English as additional language
- 2.5% of pupils
- SEN support
- 19.1% of pupils
- EHC plan
- 4.4% of pupils
- Nursery
- Yes
- URN
- 109479
Admissions demand: Reception entry, September 2026
1.04 first-choice applications per place90 places offered · 94 first-choice applications · oversubscribed
First-choice applications per place, by entry year
Applications and offers on national offer day, DfE. A ratio above 1.00 means more families named this school first choice than there were places.
Admissions cutoff distance: Reception
Last child offered a place under the distance criterion (2026 entry) lived within 1979.12 m (≈1.23 mi)
measured in a straight line.
Would you have got in? Check your postcode
One free check a month, no account needed: your postcode against this school's cutoff history. Premium adds unlimited checks, the nearby schools you would be inside, and the address check across every school at once.
Unlock with SchoolFacts Premium →Would you have got in? Check your postcode Premium
Cutoff distances as published by the local authority. Siblings and other priority groups are offered places first; cutoffs move year to year.
Compare admissions across the area: Shefford school admissions · Central Bedfordshire school admissions
Special educational needs
Needs this school records that it caters for, in the order it lists them.
- Social, Emotional and Mental Health
Provision type: Resourced provision.
- Resourced provision
- 9 of 8 places taken full, or over capacity
Unit places come from the school census and describe the position when it was taken, not today. Confirm with the local authority before relying on them.
Attendance (2025/26 autumn term)
Autumn-term absence, DfE pupil absence data. Lower is better.
Staffing
Full-time-equivalent, 2025/26.
Teacher retention (2024/25)
90% of teachers stayed at the school the following year · 5% moved to another state school · 5% left the state-funded sector
School Workforce Census, DfE. The ratio counts full-time-equivalent qualified teachers; retention follows teachers in post one November to the next. Open Government Licence v3.0.
Spending per pupil
Total expenditure ÷ pupils, council-maintained school finance return (DfE Schools Financial Benchmarking, latest year). Higher spending is not a measure of quality. It often reflects greater pupil need or a smaller school. Open Government Licence v3.0.
Inspection history since 2015
- 4 May 2023: School remains Good
- 22 November 2017: Good
Ofsted management information. Ungraded and monitoring visits do not award a new grade. How the two inspection systems work.
The area around the school
- Child poverty (IDACI)
- 9/10among the least deprived fifth of England
- Overall deprivation (IMD)
- 10/10among the least deprived tenth of England
English Indices of Deprivation 2025 (MHCLG), decile of the small area the school stands in: 1 is the most deprived tenth of England, 10 the least. IDACI counts only children in low-income families, which is the measure closest to the intake a school is likely to draw on.
| Census 2021 | This area | England |
|---|---|---|
| Adults with a degree or higher | 36.8% | 33.9% |
| Adults with no qualifications | 11% | 18.1% |
| In managerial or professional work | 48.1% | 33.2% |
| Households deprived in two or more ways | 7% | 18.1% |
| Residents in very good health | 60.7% | 48.5% |
| Homes owned by the occupier | 78.5% | 62.3% |
| Social housing | 7.3% | 17.1% |
| Privately rented | 14% | 20.5% |
| Detached houses | 43.5% | 22.9% |
| Flats | 4.8% | 22.2% |
| Homes with four or more bedrooms | 39% | 21.1% |
| Households with no car or van | 6.8% | 23.5% |
Census 2021 (ONS) for statistical area E01017439 (a lower layer super output area), the neighbourhood of roughly 1,614 adults that the school stands in. These figures describe the area, not the pupils. Children travel in from further away, and for selective, faith and some other schools usually much further. Open Government Licence v3.0.
What homes cost nearby
- Median sale price
- £347,500245 sales within 1 km, January 2024 to July 2026
- Typical range
- £242,000–£433,000the middle half of sales
- England median
- £300,000all sales over the same period
Homes around this school are dearer than most school neighbourhoods in England, comparing the median within 1 km across every state school.
Inside the Reception cutoff distance (1.98 km, 2026 entry): 429 sales, median £375,000. The homes that would have got a child in that year, at the straight-line distance the school last filled to.
Every residential sale registered with HM Land Registry within 1 km of the school (straight line) since January 2024, market sales of houses and flats only. A sale is dated by completion and registered weeks later, so the most recent months are incomplete. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. This data is licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Postcodes located with OS Code-Point Open: contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026; contains Royal Mail data © Royal Mail copyright and database right 2026; contains National Statistics data © Crown copyright and database right 2026.
Roads around the school
- Child pedestrian casualties
- 0an urban school averages 2.0
- Collisions at school-run times
- 0an urban school averages 5.8
- All reported collisions
- 3an urban school averages 30.6
- Of those, serious or fatal
- 0an urban school averages 6.1
Every collision reported to the police within 500 m of the school in 2021–2025, from the Department for Transport's road casualty statistics (STATS19). "Child pedestrians" counts casualties aged under 16 on foot; "school-run times" means weekdays 07:30–09:00 and 15:00–16:30 outside August. A high count usually says the school sits on or near a busy road, not that the school is unsafe: counts rise with traffic and with how built-up an area is, which is why the comparison is with other urban schools. Distances are straight-line from the school's recorded position. Open Government Licence v3.0.