Athersley North Primary School

About Athersley North Primary School

Athersley North Primary School in Barnsley has been rated Good in its most recent Ofsted inspection, a notable improvement from its previous Requires Improvement rating. The inspection in May 2022 awarded Good across every category, including quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, and leadership and management. The early years provision also received a Good rating. However, the school’s academic outcomes present a more challenging picture. In the 2023/24 Key Stage 2 assessments, just 25% of pupils met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined. This is significantly below the Barnsley local authority average of 63%. The school ranks 70th out of 70 primary schools in the area on this metric, placing it in the bottom 50% nationally. Individual subject results show 55% of pupils reached the expected standard in writing, 50% in maths, and 40% in reading, with very few achieving the higher standard in any subject.

The school’s Ofsted report noted that leaders have high expectations and that pupils behave well, but the exam data suggests there is considerable ground to make up academically. No progress scores are available for reading, writing or maths, so it is difficult to gauge how much value the school adds relative to pupils’ starting points. The school serves a community with high levels of disadvantage: 56.4% of pupils are eligible for free school meals, well above the national average. This context is important when interpreting the raw attainment figures. The school has a capacity of 280 pupils and currently has 289 on roll, so it is slightly oversubscribed. For the 2025/26 intake, there were 33 first-preference applications for 33 places, with a total of 55 applications overall, giving an oversubscription ratio of 1.67.

Athersley North offers a broad range of facilities including a library, sports hall, forest school, playing fields, art studios and a gymnasium. Sports on offer include football, swimming, cricket and athletics, and there are clubs such as science club, gardening, film club and eco club. The school has a nursery provision for children from age three. Its SEND provisions cover specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, moderate learning difficulty, social, emotional and mental health needs, speech, language and communication needs, physical disability, and autistic spectrum disorder. This is a school that has improved its Ofsted rating but faces clear academic challenges. It may suit families who prioritise a supportive, inclusive environment and who value the forest school and wide range of extracurricular activities, while being aware that standardised test results are currently well below local averages.

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