Southill Lower School
Primary · Biggleswade · SG18 9JA
Report-card inspection (current system, from November 2025)
The headline grade shown is the Achievement area of the school's report card.
Inspected 18 November 2025 · report published 22 January 2026
Read the Ofsted report ↗At a glance
78 pupils · 104% of 75 capacity (over capacity)
- School type
- Community school
- Age range
- 3–9
- Gender
- Mixed
- Free school meals
- 16.2% of pupils
- English as additional language
- 1.3% of pupils
- SEN support
- 2.7% of pupils
- EHC plan
- 6.7% of pupils
- Nursery
- Yes
- URN
- 109481
Admissions demand: Reception entry, September 2026
1.07 first-choice applications per place15 places offered · 16 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 4046.78 m (≈2.51 mi)
measured in a straight line.
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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: Biggleswade school admissions · Central Bedfordshire school admissions
Attendance (2025/26 autumn term)
Autumn-term absence, DfE pupil absence data. Lower is better.
Staffing
Full-time-equivalent, 2025/26.
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
- 18 November 2025: Strong standard
- 2 February 2016: Yes - improving (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)
- 5/10around the middle for England
- Overall deprivation (IMD)
- 4/10more deprived than most 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 | 31.8% | 33.9% |
| Adults with no qualifications | 14.6% | 18.1% |
| In managerial or professional work | 38% | 33.2% |
| Households deprived in two or more ways | 12% | 18.1% |
| Residents in very good health | 49.3% | 48.5% |
| Homes owned by the occupier | 49% | 62.3% |
| Social housing | 17.9% | 17.1% |
| Privately rented | 33.1% | 20.5% |
| Detached houses | 45.1% | 22.9% |
| Flats | 4.8% | 22.2% |
| Homes with four or more bedrooms | 32.5% | 21.1% |
| Households with no car or van | 7.1% | 23.5% |
Census 2021 (ONS) for statistical area E01017412 (a lower layer super output area), the neighbourhood of roughly 1,290 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.
Roads around the school
No collision was reported to the police within 500 m of the school in 2021–2025.
- Child pedestrian casualties
- 0a rural school averages 0.3
- Collisions at school-run times
- 0a rural school averages 0.7
- All reported collisions
- 0a rural school averages 3.4
- Of those, serious or fatal
- 0a rural school averages 0.9
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 rural schools. Distances are straight-line from the school's recorded position. Open Government Licence v3.0.