Before long, Sunderland families with young children ready to enter Reception will find out which local primary school can offer them a place.
National primary school offers day will be on April 16 this year, following secondary school offers day on March 3. But primary schools can be particularly important, with parents relying on them to give their child a solid foundation on which to build the rest of their education.
The Government has now released updated performance figures for state-funded primary schools, covering the 2023/24 school year. From this data, we’ve been able to compare how the 93 state primary schools across the Sunderland City Council area did, to create a league table of the city’s top performers overall.
This is based on one key figure: the percentage of each school’s pupils who completed Year 6 in the last academic year, and met the Government’s expected standards in three key skills - reading, writing and maths. We’ve included only those which exceed both the national and local authority area’s average, with more than 80% of their pupils achieving this significant goal.
Sunderland families who keep a close eye on school performance data will notice quite a few schools that also made last year’s rankings - as well as some high-performing local schools that also made the overall North East league table. But at the same time, other schools which didn’t make last year’s rankings have also newly entered into this year’s top performers.
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 11 Sunderland schools that came out on top:
1. St Leonard's Catholic Primary School
St Leonard’s is a Catholic primary academy in the Silksworth area, and was also Sunderland’s top performing primary school in last year’s rankings. It has a roll size of about 150, and was formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 100% of its pupils met the government’s expected standards for reading, writing, and maths, compared to averages of 65% locally and 61% nationally. | Google
2. Benedict Biscop Church of England Academy
Benedict Biscop is an Anglican primary academy in the city’s Moorside area, with about 304 pupils. In a recent Ofsted inspection, it was found to be ‘outstanding’ in all categories. In the 2023/24 school year, 90% of its pupils met the government’s expected standards for reading, writing, and maths, compared to averages of 65% locally and 61% nationally. | Google
3. St Mary's Catholic Primary School
St Mary’s is a Catholic primary academy in the city’s Thornhill area. It has a roll size of about 468, was formerly rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 90% of its pupils also met the government’s expected standards for reading, writing, and maths, compared to averages of 65% locally and 61% nationally. | Google
4. Barnwell Academy
Barnwell is a primary academy in Houghton le Spring, southwest of the city. It has about 271 pupils, was formerly rated ‘outstanding’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 87% of its pupils met the government’s expected standards for reading, writing, and maths, compared to averages of 65% locally and 61% nationally. | Google