In a city as vast and varied as Greater Manchester, there are near-countless excellent schools for families to choose from - even for the most high-achieving youngsters.
The Government’s latest performance figures for state-funded primary schools have now been released. From this data, we’ve been able to compare how primary schools across the all of the wider city’s local authority areas did in the most recent school year, to create a league table of its top performers.
The key figure it’s based on is the proportion of each school’s pupils who completed Year 6 in the 2023/24 academic year, who met the government’s expected standards in three key areas: reading, writing and maths. Many schools did incredibly well, but we’ve narrowed it down to only Greater Manchester’s top performers - those with more than 92% of their pupils meeting this important mark. This has given some smaller schools in the surrounding villages the chance to shine, but equally, many city schools with rolls of over 600 pupils have also excelled.
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 were the 16 Greater Manchester schools that topped the list:
13. Our Lady's RC Primary School, Wigan
Our Lady’s is a local authority-maintained Catholic primary school in Aspull, Wigan. It has about 205 pupils, and was formerly rated ‘outstanding’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 92% of its pupils met the government’s expected standard in reading, writing, and maths - compared to averages of 65% locally and 61% nationally. | Google
14. Standish St Wilfrid's Church of England Primary Academy
St Wilfrid’s is an Anglican primary academy in Standish, Wigan. It has about 592 pupils, and was formerly rated ‘outstanding’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 92% of its pupils also met the government’s expected standard in reading, writing, and maths - compared to averages of 65% locally and 61% nationally. | Google
15. St Raphael's Catholic Primary School
St Raphael’s is a local authority-maintained Catholic primary school in Millbrook, Tameside. It has about 215 pupils, and was formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 92% of its pupils also met the government’s expected standard in reading, writing, and maths - compared to averages of 60% locally and 61% nationally. | Google
16. The Olive School, Bolton
Rounding out the list is The Olive School, a Muslim primary academy in Bolton. It has a roll size of about 424, and was formerly rated ‘outstanding’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 92% of its pupils once again met the government’s expected standard in reading, writing, and maths - compared to averages of 64% locally and 61% nationally. | Google