Gomersal St Mary's Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School

About Gomersal St Mary's Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School

Gomersal St Mary's Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School holds a Good rating from Ofsted, a grade it has maintained consistently across its two most recent inspections. In its June 2024 graded inspection, the school received Good marks across every category: overall effectiveness, quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, and leadership and management, as well as for early years provision. The previous inspection in 2019 also rated the school Good overall. On the most telling exam metric available, the school's Key Stage 2 results for 2023/24 show that 59% of pupils met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined. That figure sits just one point below the Kirklees local authority average of 60%, placing the school 53rd out of 94 primary schools in the area. Nationally, it ranks 8,162nd out of 13,686 schools, putting it in the bottom half of schools across England for this combined measure.

Looking more closely at individual subjects, the school's strengths are clearer. In reading, 70% of pupils reached the expected standard and 19% achieved a higher score, while the average reading score was 106. In maths, 74% hit the expected standard and 11% reached the higher threshold, with an average maths score of 104. Writing was the weakest area: 63% met the expected standard and just 4% achieved a higher score. The school's progress scores for reading, writing and maths are not available, so it is difficult to assess how much value the school adds relative to pupils' starting points. However, the data suggests that while the school is broadly in line with local averages, there is room for improvement, particularly in writing. The school's ranking score of 59 places it in the bottom 50% tier nationally, and it sits well behind the top-performing peers in Kirklees, such as Carlton Junior and Infant School and Netherthong Primary School.

Gomersal St Mary's is a small Church of England primary school with 166 pupils against a capacity of 210, so there is some spare space. It is oversubscribed for 2025/26, with 52 applications for 26 places, and all 25 first-preference applicants received offers. The school has a nursery provision and caters for children aged 3 to 11. A third of pupils (34.3%) are eligible for free school meals, which is above the national average. The school offers a broad range of facilities including a sports hall, playing fields, a sensory room, an ICT suite, an outdoor playground and a chapel. Clubs include science, coding, chess, film, choir and gardening, and sports on offer are football, cricket, cross country and swimming. The school's SEND provisions are extensive, covering specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, moderate learning difficulties, social and emotional mental health needs, speech and language communication needs, hearing and visual impairments, and autistic spectrum disorder. This makes it a potentially strong fit for families seeking a faith-based, inclusive primary with solid pastoral support and a good range of extracurricular activities.

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