Schoolchildren across Leicestershire are now returning to the classroom, for a brand new year year of learning.
The six-week summer holidays are well and truly over for most young learners across the county, who will have headed back to school last week. They will now be settling back into routine for the new, 2025/26 school year, alongside some 10,000 new starters taking on primary school for the first time.
With this in mind, we have revisited the top-performing primary schools across the Leicester City and Leicestershire County Council areas based on our own unique metric. The key figure this draws on is the proportion of each school’s pupils who completed Year 6 in the most recent academic year (currently 2023/24), who met the Government’s expected standards in three essential school skills areas: reading, writing and maths.
We’re celebrating the schools which had more than 80% of their pupils achieve this aspirational target. But at the same time, performance isn’t the only marker of an excellent learning environment - so we’ve also included only schools with a positive mark in their latest Ofsted inspection.
These are going through some big changes, but we’ve restricted the list to schools with either a ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ overall grade under the previous system, or positive ratings across all categories under the current one. This means that the quality of education, student behaviour and attitudes, school leadership and management, and safeguarding practices all met or exceeded Government standards.
Here were the 19 schools which led the pack:
5. Whitehall Primary School
Whitehall is a local authority-maintained primary school in Leicester. It was most recently rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted, and has about 630 pupils. In the 2023/24 school year, 91% of its pupils also met the Government’s expected standards in reading, writing and maths – compared to averages of 61% both locally and nationally. | Google
6. Orchard Community Primary School
Orchard is a primary academy in Castle Donington, near Derbyshire. It was most recently rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted, and has about 329 pupils. In the 2023/24 school year, 88% of its pupils met the Government’s expected standards in reading, writing and maths – compared to averages of 61% both locally and nationally. | Google
7. St Thomas More Catholic Voluntary Academy
St Thomas More is a Catholic primary academy, in Leicester. It was most recently rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted, and has about 277 pupils. In the 2023/24 school year, 88% of its pupils also met the Government’s expected standards in reading, writing and maths – compared to averages of 61% both locally and nationally. | Google
8. Church Langton Church of England Primary School
This is an Anglican primary academy in the village of Church Langton, near Market Harborough. It was most recently rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted, and has a roll size of about 202. In the 2023/24 school year, 87% of its pupils met the Government’s expected standards in reading, writing and maths – compared to averages of 61% both locally and nationally. | Google