St James' Church of England Primary School

About St James' Church of England Primary School

St James' Church of England Primary School in Wigan holds a Good rating from its most recent Ofsted inspection in 2022, a significant improvement from its previous Requires Improvement judgement in 2008. The school’s early years provision was rated Outstanding in that same inspection, and leadership and management were also judged Good. However, the most telling academic metric comes from the 2023/24 Key Stage 2 results. Just 45% of pupils met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined, which is well below the Wigan local authority average of 65%. This places the school 91st out of 99 primary schools in the borough, putting it in the bottom half nationally. The school’s ranking score of 45 reflects these outcomes, and it sits in the bottom 50% of schools across the North West region. For parents focused on raw academic attainment, these figures are a clear signal that St James’ is not currently matching the performance of its local peers.

Breaking down the KS2 results further, the picture is mixed. In writing, 69% of pupils reached the expected standard, and 17% achieved a higher standard — the strongest subject result. Reading saw 55% at expected and 14% at a higher level, while maths was lower, with 52% at expected and just 7% reaching the higher threshold. Only 3% of pupils achieved the higher standard across all three subjects. Average scaled scores were 100 in reading and 99 in maths, both slightly below the national benchmark of 100. The school’s Progress 8 scores are not available, so it’s difficult to assess how much value the school adds relative to pupils’ starting points. Compared with the top-performing primaries in Wigan, such as Nicol Mere School (ranking score 98) or Gilded Hollins Community School (97), St James’ outcomes are notably weaker. The nearest Outstanding-rated school is Winstanley Community Primary School, 2.1 km away.

St James’ is a Church of England primary for children aged 2 to 11, with a nursery on site. It has 233 pupils against a capacity of 260, and a high proportion — 51.7% — are eligible for free school meals, well above the national average. The school is oversubscribed for 2025/26, with 37 applications for 20 places and all 20 first-preference applicants offered a place, giving an oversubscription ratio of 1.85. Facilities include a gymnasium, library, playing fields, music rooms, a forest school and a chapel. Sports on offer are rounders, football, netball and cricket, and clubs include gardening, chess and film club. The school lists a wide range of SEND provisions, covering specific learning difficulties, moderate learning difficulties, social, emotional and mental health needs, speech and language needs, hearing impairment, physical disability and other difficulties. This suggests a school well equipped to support children with additional needs, though the academic data indicates that overall attainment remains a challenge.

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