Lightcliffe C of E Primary School

About Lightcliffe C of E Primary School

Lightcliffe C of E Primary School sits within Calderdale, a local authority where 82 primary schools compete for attention and only seven hold an Outstanding rating from Ofsted. Lightcliffe itself is rated Good, a grade it has maintained across both its most recent graded inspection in 2012 and its ungraded inspection in 2021, which confirmed the school remains Good. Among its local peers, the top performers are St Mary's CofE (VC) J and I School, All Saints' CofE Primary School, and The Greetland Academy, all of which score higher on the ranking metric used here. Lightcliffe ranks 43rd out of 73 Calderdale primaries, placing it in the bottom half of the authority. The nearest Outstanding-rated school is St Andrew's CofE (VA) Junior School, 2.4 kilometres away. With a Church of England character and a mixed intake of 399 pupils against a capacity of 420, the school is close to full but not overcrowded.

In the 2023/24 Key Stage 2 results, 57% of pupils met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined. That is slightly below the Calderdale local authority average of 59%. The school’s strongest subject was reading, where 82% reached the expected standard and 31% achieved a higher standard. Maths followed with 70% at expected and 25% at higher, while writing saw 67% at expected and just 8% at higher. Only 5% of pupils hit the higher standard across all three subjects. Progress scores are not available in the data, so it is not possible to say how much value the school adds. The proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals is 6.8%, well below the national average, which may reflect the area’s relative affluence. Nationally, the school ranks 8,926th out of 13,686 primaries on the combined expected standard metric, placing it in the bottom half of schools across England.

The school offers a solid range of facilities including a sports hall, gymnasium, playing fields, an ICT suite, art studios, a sensory room, and a chapel. Sports provision covers cricket, football, netball, athletics, cross country and dance, and there are clubs for coding, chess and choir. SEND support is broad, covering specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, speech and language needs, social and emotional mental health, physical disabilities, multi-sensory impairment, and autistic spectrum disorder. For the 2025/26 intake, the school was oversubscribed: 99 applications for 35 places, with 34 first-preference offers made. That ratio of 2.83 applicants per place suggests strong local demand. Lightcliffe is a good fit for families who want a Church of England primary with decent facilities and a broad SEND offer, but who are realistic about academic outcomes being around the local average rather than among the top performers in Calderdale.

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