Bolton Brow Primary Academy

About Bolton Brow Primary Academy

Bolton Brow Primary Academy holds a Good rating from Ofsted, a grade it has maintained across its two most recent inspections, with the latest ungraded visit in 2022 confirming the school remains Good. The most telling academic metric for this Calderdale primary is its Key Stage 2 performance in reading, writing and maths combined. In the 2023/24 academic year, 63% of pupils reached the expected standard in all three subjects, which sits above the Calderdale local authority average of 59%. That places the school 35th out of 73 primaries in the borough, putting it in the top half locally. While no pupils achieved the higher standard in all three subjects, individual subject scores tell a more nuanced story: 83% met the expected standard in maths and 80% in reading, though writing lagged at 70%. The average scaled scores of 106 in maths and 105 in reading are both comfortably above the national benchmark of 100, suggesting solid core teaching.

Digging deeper into the exam data, the school's strengths and weaknesses become clearer. In maths, 30% of pupils reached the higher standard, matching the 30% who did so in reading, but only 7% achieved the higher standard in writing. This writing gap is the most obvious area for improvement. The school's overall ranking score of 63 places it in the bottom 50% nationally, though context matters: it sits in the 48th percentile within Yorkshire and the Humber and the 51st percentile nationally, meaning it is essentially mid-table. For parents comparing within Calderdale, the school is 34th out of 82 primary schools, with the nearest Outstanding-rated alternative being Parkinson Lane Community Primary School, 1.5 kilometres away. The Ofsted breakdown from the 2013 graded inspection rated leadership and management as Good, and the early years provision at that time was judged as Requires Improvement, though the school has since had a positive ungraded inspection.

Bolton Brow is a state primary for mixed genders aged 3 to 11, with a nursery on site. It has 232 pupils against a capacity of 260, and 17.3% qualify for free school meals. The school is oversubscribed: for the 2025/26 intake, there were 82 applications for 29 places, with 28 offers made to first-preference applicants from 36 first-preference requests, giving an oversubscription ratio of 2.83. Facilities include an ICT suite, library, gymnasium, playing fields and a chapel. Sports on offer range from gymnastics and cricket to netball and cross country, while clubs include book, art and chess. The school lists SEND 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. This is a solid, well-subscribed local primary that delivers above-average core results, particularly in maths and reading, and would suit families prioritising a Good-rated school with strong SEND support and a broad extracurricular offer.

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