Schools near Shaftesbury
8 open schools in Shaftesbury, Dorset · Ofsted ratings, catchment areas and admission criteria · see all Dorset schools · grammar schools in Shaftesbury
Shaftesbury has 8 state schools: 6 primary, 1 secondary, part of Dorset's wider catchment. 6 have a published Ofsted rating, and 5 of those are rated Good or Outstanding.
Undersubscribed schools rated Good or Outstanding
These schools didn't fill on first preference in the latest admissions year, despite an Ofsted rating of Good or Outstanding — worth a look if you're chasing the same handful of famous names everyone else applies to.
How places are allocated in Dorset
Primary schools: Catchment area is an explicit high-priority criterion, ranked before out-of-catchment sibling applications. (source)
Most schools use the local authority's default scheme rather than a school-specific catchment map — see each school's page for its own designated/catchment area where one is published.
Shaftesbury straddles a council boundary: the scheme above is Dorset's, and Wiltshire also has schools here, applying under its own.
Key dates
| Entry year | Event | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Sept 2028 | Application deadline | 31 October 2027 |
| Sept 2028 | Primary application deadline | 15 January 2028 |
| Sept 2028 | Offer day | 1 March 2028 |
| Sept 2028 | Primary offer day | 17 April 2028 |
| Sept 2027 | Application deadline | 31 October 2026 |
| Sept 2027 | Primary application deadline | 15 January 2027 |
| Sept 2027 | Offer day | 1 March 2027 |
| Sept 2027 | Primary offer day | 16 April 2027 |
| Sept 2026 | Application deadline | 31 October 2025 (passed) |
| Sept 2026 | Primary application deadline | 15 January 2026 (passed) |
| Sept 2026 | Offer day | 2 March 2026 (passed) |
| Sept 2026 | Primary offer day | 16 April 2026 (passed) |
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