Across the North West, nearly 75 thousand children have just kicked off their learning journey at a new primary school.
The six-week summer holidays are now over for most of the region’s young learners, and the 2025/26 school year has begun in earnest. But even for very small children who have only just entered Reception, the next few years will be important ones - where they start building up essential skills that will form the foundations of their learning for years to come.
To mark the occasion, and to celebrate the North West schools which have done especially well at making sure their pupils master these skills, we’ve revisited the top-performing primary schools across all of the major council areas - spanning Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Cheshire, and Cumbria - using our own unique metric. The key figure this uses is the proportion of each school’s pupils who completed Year 6 in the most recent academic year (currently 2023/24), and met the Government’s expected standards in three essential school skills areas: reading, writing and maths.
We’ve only included the very top schools, from both villages and cities alike, which had most of their pupils achieve this aspirational target. But as an parent will know, performance isn’t the only marker of an excellent learning environment - so we’ve also limited our league table to schools with a positive mark in their latest Ofsted inspection.
These are going through an overhaul at the moment, but all schools included had either a ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ overall grade under the previous system, or positive ratings across all categories under the current one. This means that quality of education, student behaviour and attitudes, school leadership and management, and safeguarding practices all met or exceeded Government standards.
Here were the 31 schools from across the North West which shone particularly bright:
5. Nicol Mere School
Nicol Mere is a local authority-maintained primary school in Ashton-in-Makerfield, in Greater Manchester’s Wigan borough. It has about 420 pupils, and was most recently 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 academy in Warrington, Cheshire, with about 253 pupils. It was most recently 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 local authority-maintained primary school in Leigh, in the Wigan borough. It has about 217 pupils, and was most recently 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 a local authority-maintained Anglican primary school in the village of Lower Peover, Cheshire West. It has a roll size of about 198, and was most recently rated ‘outstanding’ 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 59% locally and 61% nationally. | Google