Birdwell Primary School

About Birdwell Primary School

Birdwell Primary School sits within the Barnsley local authority, where it ranks 4th out of 70 primary schools on the key stage 2 expected standard measure — comfortably inside the top 10% of its LA. The three schools above it are Hoylandswaine Primary School, Thurgoland Church of England Primary School, and Hunningley Primary Academy, all of which score higher on the same metric. Birdwell’s own ranking score of 82 puts it well ahead of the LA average of 63, and its national percentile of 8.4 places it among the stronger performers in the country. The school is a mixed, state primary for children aged 4 to 11, with no religious character and no nursery or sixth form provision. Headteacher Richard Swallow leads a relatively small school of 188 pupils, just shy of its 210 capacity, and the school is noticeably oversubscribed: for the 2025/26 intake, it received 51 applications for 25 places, with 23 of those coming as first preferences.

Academically, Birdwell’s most recent Ofsted inspection in December 2022 awarded a Good rating across all five categories — quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management, and early years provision. This marks a clear improvement from its previous inspection in March 2019, when the school was rated Requires Improvement overall, with leadership and management also at that lower level. At key stage 2, 82% of pupils met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined, significantly above the Barnsley LA average of 63%. In individual subjects, 91% reached the expected standard in both reading and maths, and 82% in writing. Higher standard attainment was strongest in reading at 41%, followed by maths at 36% and writing at 23%. Average scaled scores sat at 108 for both reading and maths. Progress scores are not available in the data, but the attainment figures alone place Birdwell comfortably ahead of most local primaries.

The school offers a solid range of facilities including a gymnasium, sports hall, ICT suite, art studios, a sensory room, and an outdoor playground. Sports provision covers swimming, athletics, gymnastics, cricket and tennis, while extracurricular clubs include drama, chess, science club, book club and art club. SEND support is well-documented, with provisions for specific learning difficulties including dyslexia, moderate learning difficulty, social, emotional and mental health needs, speech, language and communication needs, and autistic spectrum disorder. With an oversubscription ratio of 2.04 and 23 first-preference offers from 23 first-preference applications, Birdwell is clearly a popular choice among local families. It will particularly suit parents who value strong academic outcomes in a smaller school setting, and who want a Good-rated school that has demonstrably improved its performance in recent years.

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