How far Wirral primary schools admitted from
How far away the last child offered a place lived, for 19 Wirral primary schools, from the council's own figures. Tightest first.
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Primary schools only, from the 2025/26 round. Secondary distances are not on this page.
Applying for September 2027? Primary applications close on 15 January 2027, with offers on 16 April 2027.
The tightest is St Joseph's Catholic Primary School Upton at 0.12 miles in 2025/26; the most far-reaching, St George's Primary School, admitted from 5.42 miles.
Primary schools
| School | Ofsted | Admitted from | Round | How full |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| St Joseph's Catholic Primary School Upton Wirral | Ungraded inspection, November 2024: standards maintained | 0.12 mi | 2025/26 | 88% |
| Woodlands Primary School Birkenhead | Good | 0.39 mi | 2025/26 | 93% |
| St Peter's Catholic Primary School Prenton | Good | 0.46 mi | 2025/26 | 103% |
| Riverside Primary School Wirral | Good | 0.6 mi | 2025/26 | 82% |
| Bidston Avenue Primary School Birkenhead | Good | 0.72 mi | 2025/26 | 111% |
| Heswall Primary School Wirral | Good | 0.78 mi | 2025/26 | 122% |
| Our Lady and St Edward's Catholic Primary School Birkenhead | Good | 0.78 mi | 2025/26 | 87% |
| Mersey Park Primary School Wirral | Ungraded inspection, February 2025: standards maintained | 0.81 mi | 2025/26 | 97% |
| Brookdale Primary School WIRRAL | Good | 0.82 mi | 2025/26 | 114% |
| Thingwall Primary School Wirral | Good | 0.93 mi | 2025/26 | 94% |
| Church Drive Primary School Wirral | Good | 0.95 mi | 2025/26 | 103% |
| Brookhurst Primary School Wirral | Good | 1.1 mi | 2025/26 | not published |
| Gayton Primary School Wirral | Report card | 1.26 mi | 2025/26 | 93% |
| Oxton St Saviour's CofE Primary School Prenton | Ungraded inspection, January 2025: some aspects not as strong | 1.5 mi | 2025/26 | 94% |
| Great Meols Primary School Wirral | Good | 1.91 mi | 2025/26 | 98% |
| Irby Primary School Wirral | Good | 2.07 mi | 2025/26 | 113% |
| Prenton Primary School Prenton | Report card | 2.7 mi | 2025/26 | 94% |
| Poulton Lancelyn Primary School Wirral | Report card | 2.88 mi | 2025/26 | 121% |
| St George's Primary School Wallasey | Good | 5.42 mi | 2025/26 | 100% |
If a place is refused
You can appeal. In 2025, 107 of 477 secondary appeals heard here were allowed (22.4%; England 19.9%), counted for all the council's schools together.
How to read this
Every refusal carries a right of appeal to an independent panel. In Wirral, panels heard 477 appeals for secondary places in the 2025 round and allowed 107 of them, 22.4%, against 19.9% across England. These are the council's figures for all its schools together: appeals are not published school by school, so no one can tell you the rate for one named school, and this page will not pretend to.
An infant class appeal, for reception to year 2, can only be allowed on narrow legal grounds, which is why its share is a fraction of the others.
| Appeals in 2025 | Lodged | Heard | Allowed | Share allowed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Secondary | 587 | 477 | 107 | 22.4% |
| Primary | 129 | 45 | 7 | 15.6% |
| Primary (infant classes) | 102 | 31 | 3 | 9.7% |
How every council compares, and what the figures are and are not.
The entrance test here
Wirral has grammar schools, so a place depends on an entrance test as well as on where you live. The test is the Wirral 11+ Assessment, set by Quest Assessments. For entry in September 2027 it was sat on 15 September 2026, with registration closing on 1 June 2026.
What is in the papers, and where this came from, beside every other selective area in England.
How often children here are out of school
Primary schools here missed 5.7% of sessions in 2024/25 (England 5.2%), and 14.6% of pupils were persistently absent (England 13.0%).
How to read this
In Wirral, 5.7% of primary school sessions were missed in 2024/25, about the same as the 5.2% across England. That is days missed. The second figure is children: 14.6% of primary pupils here were persistently absent, meaning they missed a tenth or more of their sessions, higher than England's 13.0%.
| 2024/25 | Sessions missed | England | Persistently absent | England |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Primary | 5.7% | 5.2% | 14.6% | 13.0% |
| Secondary | 9.3% | 8.4% | 25.4% | 23.4% |
What the figures mean
Persistently absent means missing a tenth or more of their sessions, for any reason, authorised or not. A council's rate is moved by things no school controls, term-time holidays and a bad winter among them, so read it as the weather around the schools rather than a mark against them. Higher or lower is said only where the two rates differ by at least 1 percentage point.
These are Wirral's figures for all its schools together. The Department for Education publishes absence by council, not school by school, so no one can give you the rate for one named school from this release. Source: DfE pupil absence in schools in England, explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk. Read on 1 October 2026.
Source: DfE pupil absence in schools in England, by council, not school by school
Reading the numbers
These are distances, not catchment areas, and they move every year.
How to read this
For every oversubscribed school, Wirral publishes how far away the last child offered a place lived. A short distance means a school that fills up close to its gates; a long one means places went further afield. The address on the deadline is the one the council uses.
These are not catchment areas: most English schools have none. Each figure is the distance from the school to the home of the furthest child who was offered a place under the distance criterion in that round, as Wirral measures it, which is usually a straight line from a fixed point at the home to one at the school. Looked-after children, siblings and, at faith schools, faith criteria come before distance, so a school can fill before distance is reached at all. The figure moves every year with the number of applications. How the whole process works →
Checking an address against these
Each school's page has a checker that measures a postcode against that school's distance. The full property report measures every nearby school at once, alongside sold prices, flood risk and the rest of the house.
Admission distances published by Wirral. School details and grades from the Department for Education's register and Ofsted. If a figure looks wrong, tell us and it goes on the accuracy log.