The Byrchall High School

About The Byrchall High School

If you're looking at The Byrchall High School, the first thing you'll notice is how strongly parents feel about it. In the most recent Parent View survey, covering September 2024 to September 2025, a remarkable 99% of the 139 respondents said they would recommend the school to other parents. That's an unusually high figure and suggests a lot of day-to-day satisfaction. Digging into the individual questions, 97% of parents agreed or strongly agreed that their child is happy, and 96% felt their child is safe. The school is also clearly popular in the local area: for entry in 2025/26, it received 639 applications for just 251 places, an oversubscription ratio of 2.55. Of those, 246 families put it as their first preference, and 230 of those were offered a place. So while it's not a selective school, getting in is competitive, and the parent community is evidently a very positive one.

Academically, the picture is more mixed and worth looking at closely. The school's most recent Ofsted inspection, in September 2022, rated it Good overall, with Good marks for quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, and leadership. That's a clear improvement from its previous inspection in 2019, when it was rated Requires Improvement. On exam results for 2023/24, the school's Progress 8 score is -0.4, which is below the national average and places it 14th out of 19 secondary schools in Wigan. The local authority average for Progress 8 is -0.3, so Byrchall is slightly behind its neighbours. Its Attainment 8 score is 43.4, and 42.8% of pupils achieved a grade 5 or above in English and maths. The EBacc entry rate is low at 13.2%, and the EBacc average point score is 3.65. For a school with 34.5% of pupils eligible for free school meals, these results are perhaps not surprising, but they do mean that if you're focused on top academic outcomes, you'd want to compare with schools like Golborne High School, which is rated Outstanding and sits 3.5 km away.

The school is a mixed, non-denominational secondary for ages 11 to 16, with no sixth form. It currently has 1,075 pupils against a capacity of 1,175, so there is a little room. Facilities are decent and include a swimming pool, gymnasium, sports hall, tennis courts, art studios, and a library. The sports on offer are wide-ranging, from football and cricket to martial arts and dance, and there's a good selection of clubs including a book club, choir, drama, debate, and eco club. For SEND, the school lists support for seven areas, including autistic spectrum disorder, speech and language communication, and social, emotional and mental health needs. Interestingly, 15% of the Parent View respondents said their child has SEND, and while 53% agreed the school gives them the support they need, 33% said they didn't know, which is a fairly high don't-know rate. This is a school that suits families who value a strong community feel and a broad range of activities over purely academic selectivity, and who are comfortable with the reality that it is oversubscribed.

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