Brookside Primary School

About Brookside Primary School

Brookside Primary School’s headline metrics sit below the Stockport local authority average for primary schools. While the LA average for pupils reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and maths (combined) at Key Stage 2 is 62%, Brookside’s figure is 50%. That gap of 12 percentage points places the school in the bottom half of Stockport’s 86 primary schools, ranked 50th. It’s a similar story for higher-standard attainment: just 4% of Brookside pupils achieved the higher benchmark in all three subjects, compared with a context where nearby schools like Gatley Primary (ranking score 95) and St John’s C of E Primary (90) are pulling well ahead. The school’s most recent Ofsted inspection, in March 2023, rated it Requires Improvement overall, a downgrade from its previous Good rating in 2013. Leadership and management, and the quality of education, were both judged to require improvement, though early years provision, personal development, and behaviour and attitudes were all rated Good.

Looking more closely at the 2023/24 Key Stage 2 results, the picture is mixed. In reading, 57% of pupils met the expected standard and the average scaled score was 102, which is in line with the national benchmark. Maths saw 64% reach the expected standard, also with an average score of 102. Writing was the weakest area: only 57% met the expected standard and just 4% reached the higher standard. The school’s progress scores for reading, writing and maths are not available in the data, so it’s hard to say how much value the school adds relative to pupils’ starting points. However, the overall ranking — bottom 50 nationally and bottom 50 within Stockport — suggests that academic outcomes are a significant concern for parents prioritising results. The school has 140 pupils against a capacity of 210, so there is spare capacity, and 11.4% of pupils are eligible for free school meals, which is slightly below the national average.

Brookside offers a solid range of facilities for a primary of its size, including a library, playing fields, a gymnasium, sports hall, outdoor playground, sensory room, forest school and even a chapel. Sports on offer include tennis, netball, dance, gymnastics, swimming and athletics, and there are clubs for drama, choir and chess. The school has a broad SEND offer, with provisions for specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, moderate learning difficulty, social, emotional and mental health needs, speech and language communication needs, hearing and visual impairments, and autistic spectrum disorder, plus a resourced provision. Despite the Requires Improvement rating, the school was oversubscribed for 2025/26 entry: 11 first-preference applications were made for 11 places, with 35 total applications giving an oversubscription ratio of 3.18. This suggests that local families value what Brookside offers beyond its headline results, perhaps its inclusive SEND support or its forest school and sensory room. For parents who prioritise strong academic outcomes above all, the data points towards other Stockport primaries; for those who want a smaller, well-facilitated school with good behaviour and personal development, Brookside may still be worth a visit.

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