Blackrod Anglican/Methodist Primary School

About Blackrod Anglican/Methodist Primary School

Blackrod Anglican/Methodist Primary School sits comfortably above the Bolton local authority average for its key stage 2 headline measure. The school recorded 71% of pupils reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined, compared with the LA average of 66% for primary schools. That five-percentage-point gap places it in the top half of Bolton’s 97 primary schools, ranked 34th overall. Its score of 71 on the same metric puts it in the top 50% nationally, too. The school is oversubscribed — 66 families applied for 28 places in the 2025/26 intake, with 27 first-preference offers made — which suggests local parents see the value in those above-average results. The headteacher, James Royal, leads a mixed Church of England/Methodist primary for children aged 3 to 11, with nursery provision on site. Its most recent Ofsted inspection, an ungraded visit in January 2023, confirmed the school remains Good, a rating it has held consistently across its graded inspections.

Digging into the detail of the 2023/24 key stage 2 results, the school’s strengths are clear in reading and maths. 81% of pupils met the expected standard in reading, with an average scaled score of 106, and the same proportion hit the expected standard in maths, where the average score was 105. Writing was slightly lower at 77% expected, though 16% reached the higher standard. The combined expected figure of 71% is a solid five points above the LA norm. At the higher end, 29% of pupils achieved a higher standard in reading, 13% in maths and 10% across all three subjects. Progress scores are not available in the data, so it is not possible to say how much value the school adds relative to starting points, but the raw outcomes are clearly above the local average. In the Bolton rankings, the school sits at 34th out of 87 ranked primaries, with a percentile of 39, meaning it outperforms roughly three-fifths of its local peers.

The school is well equipped, with facilities including a dining hall, ICT suite, gymnasium, sports hall, art studios, a chapel and a forest school area. Sports on offer include cricket, athletics, football, gymnastics, netball and rounders, and there are clubs for gardening, book club, science club and coding. For families with children who have additional needs, the SEND provision is broad: it covers specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, moderate learning difficulties, social, emotional and mental health needs, speech and language communication needs, physical disability, autistic spectrum disorder and other difficulties, plus a resourced provision. The school is oversubscribed by a ratio of 2.36 to one, so applying early and as a first preference is advisable. With 17.2% of pupils eligible for free school meals, the intake is broadly representative of the local area. This is a school that suits families looking for a church-affiliated primary with above-average academic outcomes, a wide range of facilities and strong SEND support, all within a popular Bolton village setting.

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