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:
13. Bexton Primary School
Bexton is a primary school in Knutsford, Cheshire, with a roll size of about 473. It was formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 95% of its pupils met the government’s expected standards in reading, writing, and maths - compared to averages of 63% locally and 61% nationally. | Google
14. Gatley Primary School
Gatley is a primary school in Stockport, Greater Manchester, with about 605 pupils. It was formerly rated ‘outstanding’ overall by Manchester. In the 2023/24 school year, 95% of its pupils met the government’s expected standards in reading, writing, and maths - compared to averages of 64% locally and 61% nationally. | Google
15. St Vincent's Catholic Primary School
St Vincent’s is a large Catholic primary school in Altrincham, Greater Manchester. It has about 631 pupils, and was formerly rated ‘outstanding’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 95% of its pupils met the government’s expected standards in reading, writing, and maths - compared to averages of 70% locally and 61% nationally. | Google
16. The Olive School, Blackburn
The Olive School is an Islamic primary school in Blackburn, Lancashire. It has about 638 pupils, and was formerly rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 95% of its pupils met the government’s expected standards in reading, writing, and maths - compared to averages of 62% locally and 61% nationally. | Google