South Yorkshire has no shortage of fantastic primary schools, official figures show, which excel at setting their pupils up for future success.
The 2025/26 school year began earlier this month for most Yorkshire learners, and they will now be settling in to a new year of school day routines. This includes very young children who have only just started Reception - generally the first year of primary school - who are only just setting out on their learning journey.
We want to celebrate the South Yorkshire primary schools which have done especially well at making sure their pupils master essential school skills in their time there. So to mark the start of the new academic year, we’ve revisited the top-performing primary schools across the Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, and Sheffield council areas using our own metric.
The key figure this uses is the proportion of each school’s pupils who completed Year 6 in the most recent academic year (currently 2023/24), and met the Government’s expected standards in three key areas: reading, writing and maths. We’ve only included the very highest achieving local schools, which had more than 80% of their pupils meet this target. But performance isn’t the only indicator of an excellent learning environment, so we’ve also made sure each school included had a positive mark in its latest Ofsted inspection.
These will be changing very soon, but in the meantime, we’ve limited our league table 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 quality of education, student behaviour and attitudes, school leadership and management, and safeguarding practices all met or exceeded Government standards.
Here were the 22 South Yorkshire schools that made the cut:
5. Roughwood Primary School
Roughwood is a primary academy in Rotherham, with about 266 pupils. It was most recently rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 85% of its pupils again met the Government’s expected standards in reading, writing, and maths – compared to averages of 59% locally and 61% nationally. | Google
6. Thurgoland Church of England Primary School
This is a local authority-maintained Anglican primary school in the village of Thurgoland, in the Barnsley borough. It has a roll size of about 206, and was most recently rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 85% 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
7. Dobcroft Junior School
Dobcroft is a maintained junior school in Sheffield which takes children from the age of 7. It has about 380 pupils, and was most recently rated ‘good’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 84% 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. Hunningley Primary Academy
Hunningley is a primary academy in Barnsley, with a roll size of about 409. It was most recently rated ‘outstanding’ overall by Ofsted. In the 2023/24 school year, 84% of its pupils again met the Government’s expected standards in reading, writing, and maths – compared to averages of 61% both locally and nationally. | Google