Elementary Schools in Norwell

Norwell has two elementary schools, William G Vinal and Grace Farrar Cole, and both serve grades PK–5 as part of the Norwell district, which ranks 31 of 351 districts in Massachusetts — the 91st percentile, with 5 stars. The two schools are similar in size, with 556 students at Vinal and 528 at Grace, and student/teacher ratios of 15 and 14.6. Free/reduced lunch figures are not reported for either school in this data, so no comparison on that measure is possible.

Grace Farrar Cole is the current standout. In 2025–2026 it ranks 82 of 899 schools, in the 91st percentile with 5 stars, and it beats Vinal in all three all-grade subjects: ELA 66.81 vs 61.05, math 64.58 vs 60.07, and science 71.91 vs 60.71. Its rank has climbed steadily, from 126 to 95 to 82, and its ELA results are remarkably consistent across grades — 69.12, 66.27 and 65.52, a spread of only 3.60 points. William G Vinal is a mixed picture. It holds the highest individual grade-level scores in the data, with 5th grade ELA at 78.31 and 5th grade math at 73.81, and it earned the top historical rank here — 49 of 916 in 2023–2024, the 95th percentile with 5 stars. But its rank has fallen 49 to 85 to 176, and it dropped to 4 stars.

Both schools remain strong relative to the state: every reported score is above the state average, and Grace's science is 7.82 points above the district. Norwell is a high-ranked district, so even scores below district averages — like Vinal's all-grade math, 5.13 points below the district but 18.96 above the state — can still be impressive. Grace spends more per student ($16,215 vs $14,640), though that figure is from 2020–2021 and cannot be tied directly to current results.