Myrtle Park Primary

About Myrtle Park Primary

Myrtle Park Primary’s most recent Ofsted inspection, carried out in July 2024, rated the school as Requires Improvement overall, a downgrade from its previous Good rating in 2019. However, the picture is more nuanced than that headline suggests. While the quality of education was judged to require improvement, every other category — early years provision, personal development, behaviour and attitudes, and leadership and management — was rated Good. That means the school’s day-to-day atmosphere and pastoral care are solid, but the academic curriculum itself needs work. The most telling exam metric is the proportion of pupils reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined: 71 per cent. That is comfortably above the Bradford local authority average of 59 per cent, placing Myrtle Park 36th out of 153 primary schools in the area, and in the top 25 per cent nationally. So while the Ofsted rating flags a problem, the actual outcomes suggest many children are doing well academically.

Digging into the 2023/24 Key Stage 2 results, the school’s strengths and weaknesses become clearer. In reading, 81 per cent of pupils met the expected standard, with an average scaled score of 107, and 39 per cent reached the higher standard. Maths was similarly strong: 84 per cent at expected, an average score of 106, and 35 per cent at the higher level. Writing was the weakest area, with 74 per cent at expected and only 6 per cent at the higher standard. That gap between maths and reading on one side and writing on the other is a common pattern nationally, but it’s particularly pronounced here. The school’s overall ranking score of 71, based on the combined expected standard metric, puts it in the top 50 per cent of schools in both the Yorkshire and Humber region and the country. Compared with its previous inspection, the drop in Ofsted rating seems to stem from curriculum quality rather than pupil behaviour or leadership, both of which remain Good.

Myrtle Park is a smaller-than-average primary with 221 pupils against a capacity of 244, and it is clearly popular: for 2025/26 admissions, there were 88 applications for 28 places, an oversubscription ratio of 3.14 to one, with all 25 first-preference applicants offered a place. The school has a nursery provision, so it caters for children from age three. Facilities include a Forest School, gymnasium, ICT suite and art studios, and there is a decent range of sports and clubs, from swimming and cricket to science club and eco club. The SEND provision is broad, covering specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, moderate learning difficulty, social and emotional mental health needs, speech and language issues, visual impairment, and autistic spectrum disorder. With 11.3 per cent of pupils eligible for free school meals, the school serves a mixed catchment. It will suit families who value strong behaviour and personal development alongside solid core results, but who are aware that the curriculum is still being improved following the recent Ofsted judgement.

Key Details

Frequently Asked Questions About Myrtle Park Primary

Helpful Guides for Parents