Downholland-Haskayne Voluntary Aided Church of England Primary School Review 2026: Tiny rural primary with mixed-age classes and a clear faith identity

This is a school where headline performance data is inherently limited by cohort size. The school states that it is not required to publish Key Stage 2 results when there are under 10 pupils. For parents, that means the most useful “results” questions are qualitative and practical, for example: how reading is taught, how gaps are identified quickly, and how pupils are prepared for the step up to secondary learning expectations.

The most recent Ofsted inspection (8 and 9 July 2025; published 15 September 2025) graded Quality of Education as Requires Improvement, Behaviour and Attitudes as Good, Personal Development as Good, Leadership and Management as Requires Improvement, and Early Years Provision as Requires Improvement. In other words, the culture and pupil experience are assessed positively, while curriculum consistency and some leadership and governance functions are still catching up to where they need to be.

Within that overall picture, early reading stands out as a relative strength. The inspection report describes phonics teaching that helps pupils use sounds accurately to read, with reading books matched to the sounds pupils know and targeted support for weaker readers. For a very small school, that kind of coherence in early reading is a high-impact lever because it unlocks access to the wider curriculum across mixed-age groups.

The teaching model here is shaped by scale. With two classes spanning the whole school, subject leadership and curriculum sequencing need to be exceptionally disciplined. The inspection report recognises that “in some subjects” curriculum design and delivery are working well, including staff checking what pupils know and remember, but it also flags that in other subjects the essential knowledge is less clear, which makes it harder to ensure pupils learn what they should.

The encouraging element is that the inspection also describes “much-needed refinements” made particularly since January 2025. In practice, that suggests a school moving from firefighting to design. Parents considering the school should ask to see how subject overviews are mapped across Acorn and Oak, and how teachers avoid repetition for older pupils while still ensuring younger pupils build foundations properly.

In early years, provision runs from age 2, even though the inspection notes that there were no two-year-olds on roll at the time of inspection. The early years pages also make clear that Acorn blends child-initiated play with adult-led activities across Nursery and Reception, which is the standard pattern families should expect in a small EYFS unit.

For a primary of this size, transition is less about mass destination patterns and more about tailoring. The school’s website does not publish a list of secondary destinations or transfer statistics, so families should ask directly what typical routes look like for recent cohorts and how handover is managed.

What can be evidenced is that the school shares Year 6 transition information about nearby secondary options. For example, a “Year 6 Meet the Headteacher” leaflet in the school’s correspondence section relates to a local secondary event for September 2026 offers. That is a useful signal that the school is actively pointing families towards structured transition touchpoints, which can matter in small cohorts where each child’s move is highly individual.

If your family is weighing several primaries, FindMySchool’s Saved Schools feature is a practical way to keep notes on transition support questions, such as SATs preparation approach in small cohorts, reading intervention, and secondary liaison.

Admissions sit within the Lancashire County Council system for starting primary. For September 2026 Reception entry, applications opened on 1 September 2025 and the deadline was 15 January 2026. Offers are released in April.

Because this is voluntary aided, faith-based criteria can apply. The school advises families who want their application considered against faith criteria to complete a supplementary form and return it to the school. The determined admissions policy for 2026/27 sets out the oversubscription order, including looked-after and previously looked-after children, siblings, residence within a defined parish benefice area, pupil premium eligibility, and regular worship attendance at a Christian church, before other applicants. If a category is oversubscribed, distance is used as the tie-breaker, with a random draw used where distances are the same.

Size is unusually constrained. The 2026/27 policy states that the school provides places for not more than 8 children in each year group. That can be reassuring for families who actively want “small by design”, but it also means places can tighten quickly if a handful of families apply in the same year.

In the latest available admissions snapshot, Reception demand is recorded as oversubscribed, with 5 applications for 2 offers, which equates to 2.5 applications per place. This is a tiny results by nature, but it still indicates that, even at small scale, competition can be real.

Practical tip: if distance becomes a deciding factor in your year, use FindMySchool’s Map Search to measure your walking-line distance and sanity-check it against historic allocation patterns for similar rural schools.

Pastoral strength is one of the clearer positives in the inspection profile. Behaviour and attitudes are graded Good and personal development is also graded Good, signalling that pupils are generally experiencing a settled culture with clear expectations and a curriculum beyond academics.

Safeguarding arrangements are effective. The school also sets out named safeguarding leads on its safeguarding page, which is a basic but important indicator of clarity for families.

SEND support is closely tied to leadership in a small school. The staff list presents the headteacher as also holding the SENDCo role, and the inspection report describes a strengthened approach to identifying and supporting pupils with SEND, including individual plans used carefully with other professionals and families. For parents, the right question is not “does the school have support”, but “how quickly can the school adapt support when a child’s needs change”, and “how is provision balanced when one class contains four year groups”.

The school’s “Extra Curricular Activities” page currently states that no extracurricular activities are running. That is unusual, and parents should not assume it means children do nothing beyond lessons. In very small schools, activities are often delivered through short-term projects, partnership events, or wraparound and holiday providers rather than a fixed weekly club timetable.

Two examples of named external activity opportunities shared through the school’s correspondence include a SHARES ActivityClub Multi-Sports offer and a WLSP Learn to Ride programme. These illustrate the likely pattern here, use external providers to add breadth when staffing capacity is tight. If regular after-school clubs matter to your family, it is worth asking what is planned for the current term, and what tends to run across the year.

Community involvement looks more established than the formal club menu. The Friends of Haskayne association lists practical ways families can help with events, fundraising, and volunteering activities, with safeguarding checks referenced where needed. In a school of this scale, PTA energy can have an outsized impact on trips, enrichment days, and the “extras” that make primary memorable.

This is a state school with no tuition fees.

Wraparound care is unusually clear and specific. The school offers an early start from 8.15am to 8.45am for £2.75 per day, plus after-school care from 3.15pm to 4.45pm for £6.50 per session. That is a concrete advantage for working families who want predictable provision rather than ad hoc arrangements.

For travel, families should expect car-based routines typical of rural settings. If you are comparing options, consider doing a normal weekday drive at drop-off time, and check whether you can sustain it year-round.

• Inspection profile is uneven. Behaviour and personal development were graded Good in July 2025, but Quality of Education and Early Years were graded Requires Improvement. This points to a school that has a positive culture while still tightening curriculum planning and leadership consistency.

• Very small cohorts change the experience. With roll numbers far below capacity, your child may benefit from close attention and leadership opportunities, but they may also have fewer same-age peers day to day.

• Extracurricular may be lighter than larger primaries. The school states it is currently not running extracurricular activities as a programme; families who want a fixed weekly clubs timetable should ask what is planned this term and what is typically offered through partners.

• Faith criteria can matter in oversubscription. As a voluntary aided Church school, worship and parish links appear in the oversubscription criteria; families should read the policy carefully and complete the supplementary form where relevant.

This is a highly distinctive small-school proposition: mixed-age classes, a rural setting used within learning, and an explicit Church of England identity. Recent leadership stability and the strengths around early reading, behaviour and personal development provide a solid base, while curriculum consistency and governance remain areas to watch.

Best suited to families who actively want a very small primary, value a faith-framed ethos, and are comfortable asking detailed curriculum questions. The main trade-off is that the school’s scale can limit published data and can make enrichment and peer group breadth more dependent on partnerships and parental involvement.