The School Record

Published admissions and inspection figures for schools in England, from the DfE, Ofsted and local authorities.

Barrow CofE Primary School

URN 111270 · Primary · Voluntary controlled school · Cheshire West and Chester

Barrow, Chester, CH3 7HW

Ofsted category of concern: Special measures

At its inspection on 24 February 2026 (Ofsted report card (current framework)), this school was placed in the category special measures.

Ofsted judged the school to be failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education, and not to have the capacity to make the necessary improvements without help.

This is about that one inspection. Schools do come out of these categories. This page does not tell you where the school stands today. Check that with Ofsted.

How many families applied

Preferences expressed and offers made at Reception, as published by the Department for Education. These describe demand. They do not indicate whether any particular child would be offered a place.

In the 2025 intake, 7 families named Barrow CofE Primary School as their first preference, and the school made 8 offers.

No per-place figure is published for this year: the school offered 8 places, too few for a ratio to mean anything.

Applications and offers at Reception, 12 intake years
Intake 1st preferences All preferences Offers made 1st prefs per place
2025 7 13 8 -
2024 3 8 3 -
2023 3 10 4 -
2022 8 17 8 -
2021 4 11 4 -
2020 8 15 8 -
2019 9 14 10 0.90
2018 6 19 6 -
2017 7 16 8 -
2016 12 15 12 1.00
2015 10 18 11 0.91
2014 11 20 11 1.00

“Offers made” counts the offers the school made. It is not the number of places the school had, so please do not read it as one.

Ofsted

Ofsted changed its inspection framework: the current one publishes several graded areas and no single overall grade, while the previous one published an overall effectiveness grade. Each inspection below states which framework produced it.

Ofsted inspections from 2022 to 2026202220232026

Ofsted report card (current framework), 24 February 2026

Category of concern: Special measures

Safeguarding: Not met

Inclusion: Expected standard

Curriculum and teaching: Expected standard

Achievement: Expected standard

Attendance and behaviour: Expected standard

Personal development and wellbeing: Strong standard

Early years: Expected standard

Leadership and governance: Urgent improvement

The current framework does not award an overall grade.

Ofsted's report for this school

Ofsted graded inspection (previous framework), 27 June 2023

Overall effectiveness: Requires improvement

Quality of education: Requires improvement

Behaviour and attitudes: Good

Personal development: Requires improvement

Leadership and management: Requires improvement

Early years: Requires improvement

Sixth form / post-16: 9

Ofsted's report for this school

Ofsted ungraded inspection, 27 April 2022

School remains Good (Concerns) - S5 Next

Ofsted's report for this school

Exam results

Published by the Department for Education for the whole year group. Figures for smaller cohorts are withheld by DfE to protect pupil privacy and appear here as a dash, not a zero.

Key stage 2 (end of primary)
Year Expected standard in reading, writing & maths Higher standard Average reading score Average maths score
2024/25 33.0% 0.0% 102.0 98.0
2023/24 - - - -
2022/23 67.0% 0.0% 106.0 102.0

Teachers staying and leaving

These come from the School Workforce Census, which follows each teacher into the next year. The numbers count full-time jobs, so a teacher who works half the week counts as half. They are not a count of people.

Census yearTeachers (FTE) Still there a year later Moved to another state school Left state schools Left in total
2024/25 3.2 3.2 0.0 0.0 0.0%
2023/24 2.4 2.4 0.0 0.0 0.0%
2022/23 2.2 1.6 0.6 0.0 27.3%
2021/22 2.6 2.2 0.0 0.4 15.4%
2020/21 3.6 2.6 1.0 0.0 27.8%
2019/20 3.6 3.6 0.0 0.0 0.0%

This is turnover among teachers. It says nothing about the headteacher or the senior leadership team: DfE publishes leadership retention separately and we do not hold it by school.

Catchment area

Cheshire West and Chester publishes an admission zone for this school (Barrow CE Primary School).

Covers: 43 live postcodes across 12.338 km².

Where it is

The shaded shape is the area the council published for Barrow CofE Primary School. Living inside it is not the same as being offered a place. Councils use these areas in different ways. Some use them to help decide who gets a place when a school is full. Some use them to decide who gets free school transport. Many use them for both. Check with the council which it is here. The edge is drawn to about 20 metres, so do not use it to judge a single house.

The 6 nearest primary schools we hold figures for, by straight-line distance from Barrow CofE Primary School.

Nearby and related

Where these figures come from

This page was made on 9 September 2026. "Retrieved" means the day we downloaded the data. It is not the day the data was written, so the figures can be about an earlier year. How we compare schools.