No matter where in the North West of England they may be, families should have no trouble finding an excellent local primary school for their child - new official performance data shows.
The government’s latest preliminary performance figures for state-funded primary schools were released last week, shortly after it published delayed performance figures for secondary schools. From this data, we’ve created a league table ranking state primary schools across the North West, including Cumbria, Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, and Merseyside.
The key figure it is based on is the percentage of each school’s pupils who completed Year 6 in the most recently ended school year, 2023-24, who met the government’s expected standards in three essential school skills: reading, writing and maths. We’ve included only the very highest-performing primary schools, which not only gave smaller village and community schools the chance to shine, but also let larger schools with hundreds of pupils prove they too could excel.
Each school included also had an overall Ofsted rating of ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ before this measure was recently dropped, or, if they’ve been inspected more recently, had at least ‘good’ grades across the board. This means that the quality of education provided, student behaviour and attitudes, school leadership and management and student safeguarding were all found to meet or exceed government standards last time the school was inspected.
Here are 18 schools from across the North West that did particularly well in the latest school year:
5. Nicol Mere School
Nicol Mere is a primary school in Ashton-in-Makerfield, in the Wigan borough, Greater Manchester. It has about 420 pupils, and was formerly rated ‘outstanding’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 98% of its pupils also met the government’s expected standards in reading, writing, and maths - compared to averages of 65% locally and 61% nationally. | Google
6. Bruche Primary School Academy
This is a primary school in Warrington, Cheshire, with about 253 pupils. It was formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 97% of its pupils met the government’s expected standards in reading, writing, and maths - compared to averages of 68% locally and 61% nationally. | Google
7. Gilded Hollins Community School
Gilded Hollins is a primary school in Leigh, in the Wigan borough, Greater Manchester. It has about 217 pupils, and was formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 97% of its pupils also met the government’s expected standards in reading, writing, and maths - compared to averages of 65% locally and 61% nationally. | Google
8. Lower Peover CofE Primary School
This is an Anglican primary school in the village of Lower Peover, Cheshire West. It has about 198 pupils, and was formerly rated ‘outstanding’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 97% of its pupils met the government’s expected standards in reading, writing, and maths - compared to averages of 59% locally and 61% nationally. | Google