Benington CE Primary School

Benington School is a small rural school set in the beautiful countryside of East Herts but close to the borders of the New Town, Stevenage. There are 112 pupils on role. Fifty percent of whom come from Benington and the surrounding villages, and fifty percent come from Stevenage. The school is organized into 4 mixed-age classes. Historically the numbers of children entering the Reception class have varied causing an imbalance in numbers throughout the years, but more recently there has been a settled number of 16 pupils admitted each year. Balancing the numbers and class sizes has been one of the challenges for the school over the last years.

The other major challenge has been the retention of pupils until the end of their Primary education. Twelve years ago there was only one pupil in Year 6-and the school role was no more than 70. This summer 15 pupils were in the final year and took SATS and the school is full.