The School Record

St. Mary's Bluecoat Church of England Primary School

Primary school · Shropshire

Lodge Lane, Bridgnorth, WV15 5EQ

This school became an academy on 1 February 2025. Before that it was a voluntary aided school, under St Mary's Bluecoat CofE (VA) Primary School (URN 123536).

About the school

Type of school
Academy
Academy trust
Shropshire Church of England Academies Trust
Became an academy
1 February 2025. Before that it was a voluntary aided school, under St Mary's Bluecoat CofE (VA) Primary School (URN 123536).
Ages
3 to 11
Boys or girls
Boys and girls
Religious character
Church of England, Diocese of Hereford
Nursery classes
Yes
Website
https://www.stmarysbc.co.uk
Telephone
01746 763455
School number (URN)
151184

Other schools run by Shropshire Church of England Academies Trust

Shropshire Church of England Academies Trust runs 7 other schools with a page here.

From Get Information about Schools, retrieved 2 September 2026. Schools update their own entries, so these can be out of date.

How big the school is

In 2024 this school had 210 places and 179 children on roll.

31 places were unfilled, which is 15% of the school.

In 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 the school had 181 children on roll on average, against 179 in 2024. Some of those years are from its record under an earlier school number.

Its places have fallen from 294 in 2009 to 210 in 2024.

Places are the whole school added up, every year group together. That is not the number of places a school offers to new children in one year.

Source: Department for Education school capacity collection.

Children in each year group

As counted on one day in January 2026, the most recent school census. These are children, not places.

Children in each year group at St. Mary's Bluecoat Church of England Primary School

Nursery 1 3, Nursery 2 7, Reception 16, Y1 25, Y2 22, Y3 23, Y4 34, Y5 32, Y6 263Nursery 17Nursery 216Reception25Y122Y223Y334Y432Y526Y6
Source: Department for Education school census, January 2026.
Year groupChildren
Nursery 1 3
Nursery 2 7
Reception 16
Year 1 25
Year 2 22
Year 3 23
Year 4 34
Year 5 32
Year 6 26

This is not a list of spare places. Places per year group are not published, and the count is from January. Children join and leave all year, so a year group that looked two under in January can be full by March.

If you are moving into the area and need a place during the school year, ask Shropshire. Councils handle applications made during the school year, including for schools that set their own admission rules. They hold the up-to-date position, which this page does not.

Who decides who gets a place

This school sets its own admission rules, through its academy trust, rather than Shropshire setting them.

Look on the school's own website for its admission arrangements. An admission authority has to agree its rules every year and publish them. The council still takes the application.

Taken from the kind of school this is, as recorded by the Department for Education. We do not hold this school's rules themselves: a summary of an admission rule is not the rule, and only the admission authority's own published arrangements are binding.

How to apply

Applications for a place starting in September 2027 close on 15 January 2027, the date the School Admissions Code sets for every council in England.

Councils send every offer for primary school places on the same day, 16 April 2027 or the next working day.

You apply through the council where you live, even for a school in another area. You do not apply to the school. Find your council's primary school application on GOV.UK.

If you live in Shropshire, the council's own page explains how to apply there. Shropshire school admissions.

To ask about visiting the school, or anything else about it, contact the school. Website: https://www.stmarysbc.co.uk. Telephone: 01746 763455.

Links and dates can change. Your council's own website has the final word. The dates are set nationally by the School Admissions Code 2021. GOV.UK link checked 23 September 2026. Shropshire's page checked 29 September 2026. Contact details from Get Information about Schools.

How many families applied

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

In the 2026 intake, 7 families named St. Mary's Bluecoat Church of England 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.

Compared with its own past

Fewer families than its recent average put this school first.

In 2026, 7 families put this school first. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 21 a year.

In 2026, 22 families named this school somewhere on their list. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 34 a year.

In 2026, every family who put this school first was offered a place here (7 of 7). In 2021 to 2025 it was every family, every year.

In 2026, 0 of the 8 offers went to children living outside Shropshire. In 2021 to 2025 the average was 0 a year.

Some of the earlier years are for St Mary's Bluecoat CofE (VA) Primary School, the school this one replaced.

Each figure is compared only with the same figure at this school. "About the same" means within 10 in every 100 of the average.

First preferences and offers at Reception

Families naming St. Mary's Bluecoat Church of England Primary School first, against the offers it made, for every intake year held.

First preferences from 14 in 2014 to 7 in 2026; Offers made from 15 in 2014 to 8 in 202601020302014201620182020202220242026Offers made8First preferences7
Source: Department for Education, school-level applications and offers. Preferences count families. Offers count places given out on offer day. The vertical axis does not start at zero.

Figures before 2026 are from St Mary's Bluecoat CofE (VA) Primary School, the school this one replaced, before it became an academy. The government's school register links the two, and they are the same school.

Applications and offers at Reception, 13 intake years
Intake 1st preferences1st choice All preferencesAny choice Offers madeOffers 1st prefs per placePer place
2026 7 22 8 -
2025
as St Mary's Bluecoat CofE (VA) Primary School		 14 30 16 0.88
2024
as St Mary's Bluecoat CofE (VA) Primary School		 18 32 18 1.00
2023
as St Mary's Bluecoat CofE (VA) Primary School		 21 34 21 1.00
2022
as St Mary's Bluecoat CofE (VA) Primary School		 23 36 23 1.00
2021
as St Mary's Bluecoat CofE (VA) Primary School		 27 37 27 1.00
2020
as St Mary's Bluecoat CofE (VA) Primary School		 26 41 26 1.00
2019
as St Mary's Bluecoat CofE (VA) Primary School		 24 41 25 0.96
2018
as St Mary's Bluecoat CofE (VA) Primary School		 22 30 26 0.85
2017
as St Mary's Bluecoat CofE (VA) Primary School		 15 22 18 0.83
2016
as St Mary's Bluecoat CofE (VA) Primary School		 13 20 16 0.81
2015
as St Mary's Bluecoat CofE (VA) Primary School		 8 19 21 0.38
2014
as St Mary's Bluecoat CofE (VA) Primary School		 14 19 15 0.93

“Offers made” is the number of offers on offer day, not the number of places the school has.

Source: Department for Education: school-level applications and offers, checked 14 September 2026. All sources.

Where families put this school on their list

In 2026 this school made 8 offers: 7 to families who had named it first and 1 to a family who named it second.

A school is not allowed to treat a family differently because of where it sat on their list. The School Admissions Code says an admission authority must not give extra priority to children whose parents rank preferred schools in a particular order.

The order is used at the end, by the council, and not by the school. Where more than one school could take a child, the council offers the one the family put highest.

Leaving the other boxes empty does not change how this school considers an application. If none of the schools a family names can offer a place, the council has to offer one at a school that has room, and that school may be further away.

Source: Department for Education school level applications and offers, and the School Admissions Code 2021, paragraphs 1.9 and 2.11.

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 2021 to 202320212023
Each inspection this school holds, on a date axis. A heavier mark is an inspection that imposed a category of concern.

Ofsted graded inspection (previous framework), 14 November 2023

This inspection relates to a predecessor of the current school.

Overall effectiveness
Good
Quality of education
Good
Behaviour and attitudes
Good
Personal development
Good
Leadership and management
Good
Early years
Good

Ofsted's report for this school

Ofsted ungraded inspection, 1 December 2021

This inspection relates to a predecessor of the current school.

School remains Good (Concerns) - S5 Next

Ofsted's report for this school

Source: Ofsted: state-funded school inspections management information, checked 14 September 2026. All sources.

If you are refused a place

In 2026, families in Shropshire lodged 53 appeals about a primary school place.

14 of them were heard by a panel and 4 succeeded, which is about 29 in every 100 heard.

The other 39 did not reach a panel. Most appeals that do not are withdrawn because a place comes up first.

Reception is an infant class, and the law caps an infant class at 30 children. A panel hearing an appeal about an infant class can only agree in three situations: the place was refused by mistake, the admission rules were not applied properly, or the decision was one no reasonable council would have made. It cannot simply decide that the child should have the place.

Of the 7 infant class appeals heard in Shropshire in 2026, 1 succeeded.

This is a record of decisions already made. A panel hears one case at a time and decides it on what that family sets out, so these figures do not indicate what would happen in any particular appeal.

These count appeals about every school in Shropshire, not this school. Nobody publishes appeal figures school by school.

Source: Department for Education, admission appeals in England, reporting year 2026.

Waiting lists

Being refused a place does not end the application. Every admission authority has to keep a waiting list until at least 31 December of the school year the child would have started, and some keep them for longer.

A waiting list is not a queue. The rules say a child cannot be given priority for having joined it earlier, or for having applied earlier. The list is put back in order against the school's own admission rules every time a child is added, so a place can move further away as well as nearer.

Councils differ on whether a refused child goes onto the list automatically. The council that sent the refusal is the only place that can say which it does.

From the School Admissions Code 2021, paragraph 2.15.

Children with special educational needs

In January 2026, 23 of the 188 children here had an education, health and care plan. That is 12 in every 100. Across schools in England the middle figure is 4 in every 100.

A further 18 were on SEN support, which is help arranged by the school without a plan. That is 10 in every 100, against a middle figure of 15 in every 100 across England.

A school named in a child's education, health and care plan has to admit that child. That duty holds even when the school is full, and it sits outside the rules that decide who gets a place when there are more children than places. Which school is named is decided with the council while the plan is being written, not through the normal application.

This school runs a SEN unit: teaching for children with special educational needs, on the same site as the rest of the school.

The published figures do not say which kinds of need it is set up for, or how many children it takes. Ask the school or Shropshire.

Source: Department for Education, special educational needs in England, January 2026 census.

Who goes to this school

In January 2026, 46 of the 188 children here were known to be eligible for free school meals. That is 24 in every 100.

More children are eligible here than at half of primary schools in England, where the middle figure is 20 in every 100.

English was not the first language for 4 in every 100 children here. Across primary schools the middle figure is 10 in every 100.

This describes the children who go to this school. It is not a measure of the school. Most children go to a school near home, so it is mostly a fact about the streets around it.

This matters when reading results. Across the 15,153 schools we hold 2024 key stage 2 results for, the fifth with the fewest eligible children averaged 70% reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and maths. The fifth with the most averaged 48%.

Those are averages of many schools all over the country. This school's own results are further down this page exactly as published.

Source: Department for Education school census, January 2026. Free school meal eligibility is counted for every pupil on roll.

Catchment area

Shropshire publishes an admission zone for this school (St. Mary's Bluecoat CE Primary School, Bridgnorth).

Covers: 124 live postcodes across 14.681 km².

This zone overlaps others. An address here may also fall inside the catchment of Bridgnorth County Infant School. Being in this catchment does not mean being in only this one.

5 of the postcodes in this zone sit within 50 m of its edge. We place an address by its postcode centroid, not the address itself, so for those a specific house may fall the other side of the line.

Shared with: Bridgnorth County Infant School. The council publishes one area for these schools together, so the same streets belong to all of them.

Where it is, and schools nearby

The shaded shape is the area the council published for St. Mary's Bluecoat Church of England 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 St. Mary's Bluecoat Church of England Primary School.

Nearby and related

Where these figures come from

Using this information

This is information only, not advice. It may have mistakes in it, or be out of date. Check with the school and the council before you decide anything. We collect these figures from official publications and check them, but mistakes can get through. If you find one, tell us.

Figures current as of 14 September 2026.

This page was updated on 5 November 2026. "Retrieved" is the date of our copy of each source, not the year its figures describe. How we compare schools.