Higher Openshaw Community School

About Higher Openshaw Community School

Higher Openshaw Community School sits in the middle of the pack when you compare its headline Key Stage 2 results against the Manchester local authority average. The school’s proportion of pupils reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined is 56%, just a whisker below the LA average of 57%. That puts it 64th out of 137 primary schools in Manchester, squarely in the middle third of the borough. The school is also oversubscribed, with 77 applications for 34 places in the 2025/26 intake, suggesting it holds a solid reputation locally. Its most recent Ofsted inspection, an ungraded visit in 2023, confirmed the school remains Good, a rating it has held consistently since at least its previous graded inspection in 2018. The early years provision, leadership and management were all judged Good in that 2018 inspection too.

Digging into the detail of the 2023/24 KS2 results, the picture is mixed but broadly in line with national norms. Reading is a relative strength: 70% of pupils met the expected standard and 21% reached the higher standard, with an average scaled score of 104. Writing lags a little, with 67% at expected and just 7% at the higher level. Maths sits between the two, with 58% at expected and 12% at the higher standard, and an average score of 101. Only 5% of pupils achieved the higher standard across all three subjects, which is below the national average for that top tier. The school ranks 65th out of 122 Manchester primaries on the combined expected standard metric, placing it in the bottom half of the LA table and the bottom half nationally. There are no progress scores available in the data, so it’s hard to say how much value the school adds relative to pupils’ starting points.

The school serves a community with high levels of disadvantage: 59.6% of pupils are eligible for free school meals, well above the national average. It has a nursery provision and caters for children from age 3 to 11. The facilities are decent for a primary of this size, including an ICT suite, library, sensory room, music rooms and a chapel. SEND provision covers specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, speech and language needs, social and emotional mental health, physical disability and autistic spectrum disorder. Sports on offer include cross country, netball, dance, rounders, swimming, gymnastics and cricket, while clubs include coding, choir and eco club. The school is oversubscribed, so families applying will need to be aware that first preference applications matched the number of places exactly, meaning not all applicants will get in. This is a solid, well-regarded local primary that performs around the LA average, with a strong reading record and good support for SEND pupils.

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