St Basil's Catholic Primary School

About St Basil's Catholic Primary School

St Basil's Catholic Primary School sits within Halton, a local authority where just two of 49 primary schools hold an Outstanding Ofsted rating. The school itself ranks 25th out of 43 primaries in the borough on KS2 performance, placing it in the bottom half locally. Among its top-performing peers are Moorfield Primary School, Moore Primary School and Castle View Primary School, all of which score higher on the same ranking metric. St Basil's is a state-funded Roman Catholic primary for mixed pupils aged 3 to 11, with a nursery on site. It currently has 223 pupils against a capacity of 420, and a high proportion — 55.2 per cent — are eligible for free school meals. The school is oversubscribed for the 2025/26 intake, with 32 applications for 17 places and all 17 first-preference applicants offered a spot.

In its most recent graded inspection in 2019, Ofsted rated the school Good overall, with Good marks across all five categories including quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management, and early years provision. This was an improvement from its previous inspection in 2017, when it was judged Requires Improvement. A subsequent ungraded inspection in October 2024 confirmed that standards have been maintained. At Key Stage 2 in the 2023/24 academic year, 60 per cent of pupils reached the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined — just above the Halton local authority average of 59 per cent. However, only 6 per cent achieved the higher standard in all three subjects. In individual subjects, 77 per cent met the expected standard in maths, 65 per cent in reading and 69 per cent in writing. Average scores in reading and maths were both 103.

The school offers a range of facilities including a sports hall, art studios, playing fields, library, outdoor playground, dining hall and chapel. Sports on offer include football, rounders, netball, athletics, cross country and cricket, while clubs include choir, gardening, film club and eco club. SEND provisions cover moderate learning difficulty, social emotional and mental health needs, speech language and communication needs, autistic spectrum disorder and a resourced provision. Parent View responses from 34 parents between September 2024 and September 2025 were overwhelmingly positive: 91 per cent agreed or strongly agreed their child is happy, 91 per cent felt their child is safe, and 100 per cent agreed their child does well at the school. However, 27 per cent disagreed that concerns are dealt with properly, and 82 per cent said they would recommend the school. This is a faith-based primary that serves a high-needs community and has seen clear improvement under headteacher Angela Sheppard.

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