Primary schools are often the heart of their community, teaching their youngest residents the skills they will need to succeed in their school years and beyond.
The government’s preliminary performance figures for state-funded primary schools were released last month, shortly after it published delayed performance figures for secondary schools. From this data, we’ve been able to compare how the 161 state primary schools across the Northumberland County Council area did in the 2023/24 school year, and create a league table of its top performers.
The key figure it’s based on is the proportion of each school’s pupils who completed Year 6 in the last academic year, and met the government’s expected standards in three key areas: reading, writing and maths. We’ve included only Northumberland’s highest performers, from smaller village schools, to those in larger centres like Blyth and Cramlington.
Each school included also had an overall Ofsted rating of ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ before this measure was recently dropped, or, if they’ve been inspected more recently, had at least ‘good’ grades across the board. This means that the quality of education provided, student behaviour and attitudes, school leadership and management and student safeguarding were all found to meet or exceed government standards last time the school was inspected.
Here were the 15 schools from across Northumberland that came out on top:
1. Eastlea Primary School
Eastlea is a primary school in Cramlington, formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. It has a roll size of about 222. In the 2023/24 school year, 82% of its pupils met the government’s expected standards in reading, writing and maths - compared to averages of 56% locally and 61% nationally. | Google
2. Bede Academy
Bede Academy is a Christian all-through school in Blyth, formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. It has more than 2,000 students overall. In the 2023/24 school year, 81% of its primary pupils met the government’s expected standards in reading, writing and maths - compared to averages of 56% locally and 61% nationally. | Google
3. Belsay Primary School
This is a village primary school in Belsay, formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. It has a roll size of about 83. In the 2023/24 school year, 81% of its pupils also met the government’s expected standards in reading, writing and maths - compared to averages of 56% locally and 61% nationally. | Google
4. Shilbottle Primary School
This is another smaller, village primary school, in Shilbottle. It was formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted, and has about 81 pupils. In the 2023/24 school year, 80% of its pupils met the government’s expected standards in reading, writing and maths - compared to averages of 56% locally and 61% nationally. | Google