St Mary's CofE Primary School

About St Mary's CofE Primary School

St Mary's CofE Primary School in Wigan holds a Good rating from its most recent Ofsted inspection in 2024, a grade it has maintained across both its recent inspections. The school’s most telling academic metric is its Key Stage 2 combined reading, writing and maths expected standard, where 50% of pupils met the benchmark in 2023/24. That figure sits below the Wigan local authority average of 65%, placing the school 86th out of 98 primary schools in the borough. In the North West region it ranks in the 76th percentile, and nationally in the 78th percentile. While the proportion reaching the higher standard in all three subjects is just 5%, individual subject results show more variation: 68% of pupils achieved the expected standard in writing, compared with 66% in both reading and maths. Average scaled scores were 103 for reading and 102 for maths, both slightly above the national baseline of 100.

Ofsted’s 2024 inspection rated every category as Good, including quality of education, personal development, behaviour and attitudes, early years provision, and leadership and management. The previous inspection in 2015 also awarded Good overall, though early years provision was graded as Requires Improvement at that time, so the improvement in that area is notable. With 48.4% of pupils eligible for free school meals, the school serves a community with above-average disadvantage, which provides important context for its academic outcomes. The school has 256 pupils on roll against a capacity of 315, so there is some spare capacity. It is oversubscribed for 2025/26, with 49 applications for 30 places and 29 first-preference offers made, suggesting solid local demand despite the middling league table position.

Facilities include a sensory room, library, chapel, playing fields, sports hall and gymnasium, and the school offers a wide range of sports from football and cricket to swimming and cross country. Clubs cover coding, chess, art, choir, science and film. SEND provision is broad, covering specific learning difficulties including dyslexia, moderate learning difficulty, social emotional and mental health needs, speech language and communication needs, hearing impairment, multi-sensory impairment and autistic spectrum disorder. This is a Church of England primary for mixed pupils aged 4 to 11, led by headteacher Gillian Talbot. It will suit families in the Wigan area who value a faith-based setting with strong pastoral and SEND support, and who are comfortable with a school whose academic results are below the local average but which has been consistently judged Good by Ofsted.

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