What is an Ofsted rating?

An Ofsted rating is the grade given to a school in England following an inspection by Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education). Schools are rated Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement, or Inadequate based on the quality of education, behaviour, leadership, and early years provision.

How are schools graded by Ofsted?

Ofsted inspectors visit schools and assess four key areas: quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, and leadership and management. Each area is graded, and the grades combine into an overall judgement: Outstanding (1), Good (2), Requires Improvement (3), or Inadequate (4).

What is the difference between Outstanding and Good in Ofsted?

An Outstanding school significantly exceeds national expectations across all areas — teaching is consistently excellent, outcomes are high, and leadership is exceptional. A Good school meets the high standards Ofsted expects and provides a strong education. The majority of London schools are rated Good.

How do I find my local school's Ofsted rating?

Use the search on ofsted.london to find any London school by name, postcode, or borough. Each school page shows the current Ofsted rating, the date of the last inspection, and a link to the full inspection report on the Ofsted website.

What does KS2 mean in school data?

KS2 stands for Key Stage 2, which covers Years 3–6 (ages 7–11) in primary school. KS2 results typically refer to the SATs taken at the end of Year 6. The headline measure is the percentage of pupils meeting the expected standard in Reading, Writing, and Maths (RWM).

What does FSM mean for schools?

FSM stands for Free School Meals. The percentage of pupils eligible for free school meals is used as a measure of deprivation. A higher FSM percentage indicates a school serving a more economically disadvantaged community. Schools with high FSM rates and strong Ofsted ratings are often highlighted as 'beating the odds'.

Which London borough has the best Ofsted ratings?

Across London, boroughs such as Richmond upon Thames, Sutton, and Kingston upon Thames consistently have high proportions of Outstanding and Good schools. Inner-city boroughs including Tower Hamlets have made significant improvements and often perform above expectations relative to their levels of deprivation.

How often are schools inspected by Ofsted?

Outstanding schools were historically exempt from routine inspection but new rules introduced in 2023 mean all schools are inspected regularly. Good schools are typically inspected every four to five years. Schools rated Requires Improvement or Inadequate are inspected more frequently — often within one to two years.

Data analysis · Primary schools

Does deprivation predict school results in London? We ran the numbers

Updated July 2026 · Analysis of 1,608 London primary schools

It's one of the most common assumptions in school choice: schools in poorer areas get worse results. We tested it against the data — every London primary school that publishes both a Key Stage 2 result and a free school meals (FSM) figure. FSM eligibility is the standard proxy for deprivation in English education data, and KS2 "expected standard in reading, writing and maths" is the headline attainment measure for primaries. The relationship is real. It is also weaker than most parents assume — and the exceptions are the most interesting schools in London.

1,608

Primary schools analysed

-0.30

Correlation FSM ↔ KS2

12+

High-FSM schools at 80%+ KS2

What the correlation actually says

Across the schools analysed, the correlation between a school's FSM percentage and its KS2 pass rate is -0.30 — negative, meaning higher deprivation is indeed associated with lower attainment on average. But a correlation of this size explains only 9% of the variation between schools. Put plainly: most of the difference between London primary schools' results is not explained by how deprived their intake is. Leadership, teaching, stability and curriculum account for the rest — which is why two schools a few streets apart, serving similar communities, can post results twenty percentage points apart.

London is also a special case nationally. The capital's schools have, for two decades, achieved better results for disadvantaged pupils than the rest of England — the legacy of sustained investment and improvement programmes in the 2000s. The borough table below shows how that plays out today.

Borough by borough: deprivation and results

BoroughAvg FSMAvg KS2 RWM

1. Richmond upon Thames14.5%78.2%

2. Hammersmith and Fulham33.8%76.9%

3. Hackney41.6%76.1%

4. Newham36.2%76.0%

5. Redbridge18.9%75.7%

6. Kensington and Chelsea35.3%75.6%

7. Camden44.1%75.2%

8. Westminster37.4%74.2%

9. Waltham Forest23.5%74.1%

10. Greenwich32.0%74.0%

11. Harrow15.8%73.7%

12. Barnet20.2%73.2%

13. Tower Hamlets40.6%71.2%

14. Haringey26.1%71.1%

15. Merton26.9%70.8%

16. Hounslow22.4%70.6%

17. Enfield33.3%70.4%

18. Sutton19.6%70.3%

19. Wandsworth32.5%70.2%

20. Croydon27.9%70.2%

21. Lambeth39.9%70.0%

22. Bromley17.3%69.7%

23. Southwark41.0%69.5%

24. Brent25.8%69.2%

25. Ealing29.6%69.1%

26. Barking and Dagenham25.6%68.7%

27. Lewisham28.0%68.5%

28. Hillingdon22.5%67.2%

29. Bexley20.0%67.2%

30. Islington46.6%67.1%

31. Kingston upon Thames17.2%66.4%

32. Havering19.2%66.4%

Unweighted averages across primary schools with published data in each borough, ranked by KS2. London-wide averages: FSM 28.6%, KS2 RWM 71.3%.

Read the two columns against each other and the story is more textured than "rich boroughs win." Several boroughs with well-above-average deprivation post KS2 averages at or above the London mean — the pattern that made "the London effect" famous in education research. Meanwhile some leafier boroughs sit lower in the table than their demographics would predict. The borough you live in constrains your options far less than the specific school does.

The schools breaking the pattern

The strongest version of the argument is individual schools. The list below shows London primaries where at least 40% of pupils are FSM-eligible — roughly double the national rate — and where 80% or more of pupils reached the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined, comfortably above the national average. These schools are doing something the raw demographics say shouldn't happen.

01St Helen's Catholic Primary SchoolLambethFSM 44%KS2 97%

02Stockwell Primary SchoolLambethFSM 41%KS2 95%

03Enfield Heights AcademyEnfieldFSM 47%KS2 93%

04Benedict AcademyMertonFSM 66%KS2 93%

05Winton Primary SchoolIslingtonFSM 59%KS2 92%

06Charles Dickens Primary SchoolSouthwarkFSM 43%KS2 92%

07Southwold Primary SchoolHackneyFSM 48%KS2 91%

08Rosetta Primary SchoolNewhamFSM 47%KS2 91%

09St Paul's Church of England Primary SchoolCamdenFSM 41%KS2 90%

10Saint Francis of Assisi Catholic Primary SchoolKensington and ChelseaFSM 47%KS2 90%

11John Burns Primary SchoolWandsworthFSM 60%KS2 90%

12Northwold Primary SchoolHackneyFSM 50%KS2 90%

Criteria: FSM ≥ 40% and KS2 RWM expected ≥ 80%. Full interactive list on our Beating the Odds page.

How to use this when choosing a school

Three practical takeaways. First, don't screen schools by area demographics — the school-level data is free and specific, and the spread within every borough dwarfs the differences between boroughs. Second, look at progress scores alongside attainment: a school with average attainment and strongly positive progress scores is adding more value than a school with high attainment and negative progress. Every school profile on this site shows both. Third, treat single-year percentages with humility — a one-form-entry primary's KS2 figure rests on about 30 children, so small gaps between schools are noise. What you're looking for is a consistent pattern across attainment, progress, and the most recent inspection.

Explore the underlying data yourself: filter any borough by FSM in the school explorer, browse Beating the Odds, or read what FSM and KS2 mean in our glossary.

Every figure in this analysis is computed directly from published DfE data at build time and updates automatically when the dataset refreshes. Correlation is Pearson's r at school level. See our methodology.