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:
9. New Longton All Saints CofE Primary School
All Saints is an Anglican primary school in the Lancashire village of New Longton, just south of Preston. It has about 216 pupils, and 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 60% locally and 61% nationally. | Google
10. St Mary's Catholic Primary School, Billinge
This is a Catholic primary school in Billinge, near St Helens in Merseyside. It has about 200 pupils, and 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 60% locally and 61% nationally. | Google
11. Kincraig Primary School
Kincraig is a primary school in Bispham, in Blackpool, Lancashire. It has about 233 pupils, and was formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 96% of its pupils met the government’s expected standards in reading, writing, and maths - compared to averages of 53% locally and 61% nationally. | Google
12. Thornton Hough Primary School
This is a primary school in Thornton Hough, in Merseyside’s Wirral borough. It has about 180 pupils, and was formerly rated ‘outstanding’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 96% of its pupils met the government’s expected standards in reading, writing, and maths - compared to averages of 54% locally and 61% nationally. | Google