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:

5. St Aidan's Catholic Primary School
St Aidan’s is a Catholic primary school in Ashington, formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. It has a roll size of about 230. In the 2023/24 school year, 80% 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

6. Burnside Primary School
Burnside is a primary school in Cramlington, formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. It has a roll size of about 435. In the 2023/24 school year, 78% of its pupils met the government’s expected standards in reading, writing and maths - compared to averages of 56% locally and 61% nationally. | Google

7. Ringway Primary School
This is a primary school in Stakeford, formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. It has about 170 pupils. In the 2023/24 school year, 77% of its pupils met the government’s expected standards in reading, writing and maths - compared to averages of 56% locally and 61% nationally. | Google

8. St Matthew's Catholic Primary School
St Matthew’s is a Catholic primary school in Prudhoe. It was formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted, and has a roll size of about 149. In the 2023/24 school year, 77% 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