St Mary's CofE Primary School

About St Mary's CofE Primary School

If you’re a parent weighing up St Mary’s CofE Primary School, the first thing you’ll notice is just how sought-after it is. For the 2025/26 intake, the school received 74 applications for just 16 places, giving an oversubscription ratio of 4.63. That means nearly five families applied for every spot. Of those 74 applications, 14 were first-preference choices, and 14 first-preference offers were made — so if you put it top of your list, you had a decent chance, but competition is fierce. The school is popular, and that reputation is backed up by parent sentiment. While the data doesn’t include a specific parentView recommend percentage, the sheer demand tells its own story. St Mary’s is a Church of England primary in Trafford, with a headteacher called Alison Daniel, and it currently has 184 pupils on roll against a capacity of 210, so there’s a little headroom, but not much.

Academically, St Mary’s sits in the middle of the pack locally. In the 2023/24 KS2 results, 63% of pupils reached the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined — below the Trafford local authority average of 71%. That puts the school at rank 45 out of 55 primaries in the borough, in the bottom half. Nationally, it’s around the 48th percentile. The school’s strongest individual subject at KS2 was reading, where 81% hit the expected level and 19% reached the higher standard. Maths followed with 66% at expected and 22% at higher. Writing was weaker, with 78% at expected but only 3% at higher. Progress scores aren’t available in the data, so it’s hard to say how much value the school adds, but the raw attainment is below the local norm. Ofsted rated the school Good overall in its most recent graded inspection in 2016, and a subsequent ungraded inspection in 2021 confirmed it remains Good. The early years provision was also rated Good.

On the practical side, St Mary’s has a decent range of facilities for a primary of its size, including an ICT suite, library, chapel, forest school, art studios and outdoor playground. Sports on offer include swimming, cricket, football and tennis, and there are clubs for drama, science, choir and gardening. The school has a nursery provision, so it takes children from age three. For SEND, it lists support for specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, moderate learning difficulties, profound and multiple learning difficulties, social emotional and mental health needs, and speech, language and communication needs. The nearest Outstanding-rated primary is Davyhulme Primary School, 0.9 km away, which might be worth a look if you’re after a higher Ofsted grade. St Mary’s will suit families who value a Church of England ethos, a strong sense of community and a school that’s clearly popular locally, even if its academic results are more mid-table than top-tier.

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