St Thomas CofE Junior and Infant School

About St Thomas CofE Junior and Infant School

St Thomas CofE Junior and Infant School in Wigan holds a Good rating from Ofsted, a grade it has maintained across its two most recent inspections. The most useful metric for understanding academic performance here is the Key Stage 2 combined reading, writing and maths expected standard. In the 2023/24 academic year, 59% of pupils reached this benchmark, which is below the Wigan local authority average of 65%. This places the school 68th out of 99 primary schools in the borough, putting it in the bottom half locally. The school’s ranking score of 59 also places it in the bottom 50% nationally. While the headline figure is modest, the picture is more nuanced when you look at individual subjects. In writing, 78% of pupils met the expected standard, and in maths it was 75%, both stronger than the combined figure suggests. Reading was slightly lower at 72%. At the higher standard, 22% of pupils achieved greater depth in maths, with 19% doing so in both reading and writing. Only 6% hit the higher threshold across all three subjects.

The Ofsted inspection from March 2025, which was ungraded, confirmed that standards are being maintained across the board. Every graded area — quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management, and early years provision — was rated Good. This consistency is reflected in the parent view data, where 94% of the 34 respondents would recommend the school. Responses were overwhelmingly positive: 98% strongly agreed or agreed that their child is happy, and 100% felt their child is safe. On behaviour, every parent agreed the school ensures pupils are well behaved. The school has 213 pupils on roll, slightly above its capacity of 210, and is oversubscribed: for 30 places in the 2025/26 intake, there were 73 applications, with 23 offers going to first-preference families. The proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals is 32.4%, well above the national average, and the school has a Church of England character.

Facilities include a Forest School, gymnasium, playing fields, music rooms, and a chapel, with sports such as football, cricket, netball, rounders, tennis and gymnastics on offer. Clubs include film club, science club and choir. The school has identified SEND provisions for moderate learning difficulty, social, emotional and mental health needs, speech, language and communication needs, visual impairment, and autistic spectrum disorder. However, the parent view question on SEND support received no responses, so it is difficult to gauge parental satisfaction in this area. St Thomas is a state primary for mixed genders aged 4 to 11, with no nursery or sixth form. It will suit families who value a Good-rated Church of England school with strong parent satisfaction and a broad range of activities, but who are comfortable with below-average KS2 combined outcomes and a school that is oversubscribed. The nearest Outstanding-rated school is All Saints Catholic Primary School, just 0.3 km away, which may be worth comparing.

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