Church Road Primary School

About Church Road Primary School

Church Road Primary School in Bolton holds a Good rating from Ofsted, a grade it has maintained across both its most recent inspections. The school’s most recent ungraded inspection in March 2025 confirmed that standards are being maintained, with every category — quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, and leadership and management — rated Good. The early years provision is also Good. When it comes to academic outcomes at Key Stage 2, the headline figure is that 61% of pupils reached the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined. That is slightly below the Bolton local authority average of 66%, and it places the school 53rd out of 87 primary schools in the borough. Nationally, Church Road sits in the bottom half of schools on this measure, ranking 7,364th out of 13,686 primaries.

Digging into the individual subjects, the picture is more mixed. In reading, 85% of pupils met the expected standard and 18% reached the higher standard, with an average scaled score of 104. Maths saw 84% at the expected level and 15% at the higher standard, also with an average score of 104. Writing was the weaker area: 68% reached the expected standard and 18% the higher standard. Just 3% of pupils achieved the higher standard across all three subjects combined. Progress scores are not available in the data, so it is not possible to say how much value the school adds relative to pupils’ starting points. The school’s ranking score of 61 places it in the bottom 50 tier nationally, though it is worth noting that the school serves a community where a quarter of pupils (24.8%) are eligible for free school meals, which is above the national average.

The school is heavily oversubscribed: for 105 applications to 52 places, with 39 first-preference offers made. That suggests strong local demand. Facilities include an ICT suite, library, playing fields, and a chapel, and the school offers a range of sports including cross country, athletics, swimming and cricket. Clubs cover coding, eco club and chess. For children with additional needs, the school lists provisions for moderate learning difficulty, social, emotional and mental health needs, speech, language and communication needs, hearing impairment, physical disability and autistic spectrum disorder. Parent views are overwhelmingly positive — 93% would recommend the school, and 97% of respondents strongly agreed or agreed that their child is happy. This is a school that appears to be well regarded by its community, even if its academic results are more middling than outstanding on paper.

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