SchoolFacts.uk

Mount St Joseph RC High School a Voluntary Academy

Secondary · Bolton · BL4 0HT

⇄ Compare with another school
Requires improvement

Graded inspection under the pre-November 2025 system

This is an overall-effectiveness grade from the previous inspection framework. The school has not yet had a report-card inspection.

Quality of education: Requires improvementBehaviour & attitudes: GoodPersonal development: GoodLeadership & management: Requires improvementSafeguarding effective: Yes

Inspected 24 October 2023

Read the Ofsted report ↗

At a glance

895 pupils · 99% of 900 capacity

School type
Academy converter
Age range
11–16
Gender
Mixed
Religious character
Roman Catholic
Admissions
Non-selective
Free school meals
37.4% of pupils
English as additional language
40.6% of pupils
SEN support
14.8% of pupils
EHC plan
4.1% of pupils
Website
https://www.msj.stoccat.org.uk/
URN
151356

Admissions demand: Year 7 entry, September 2026

0.82 first-choice applications per place

174 places offered · 143 first-choice applications · usually has places

Applications and offers on national offer day, DfE. A ratio above 1.00 means more families named this school first choice than there were places.

Admissions cutoff distance: Year 7

Last child offered a place under the distance criterion (2026 entry) lived within 0.93 miles

measured in a straight line.

Cutoff distance by entry year

24
25
26

Premium shows the exact distance behind every earlier year, and two more years of history back to 2022.

See what a pass includes →

Would you have got in? Check your postcode

One free check a month, no account needed: your postcode against this school's cutoff history. Premium adds unlimited checks, the nearby schools you would be inside, and the address check across every school at once.

Unlock with SchoolFacts Premium →

Cutoff distances as published by the local authority. Siblings and other priority groups are offered places first; cutoffs move year to year.

Attendance (2025/26 autumn term)

Sessions missed (overall absence)
10%
England 6.5%
Pupils missing 10%+ of sessions (persistent absence)
29.9%
England 18.1%

Autumn-term absence, DfE pupil absence data. Lower is better.

Staffing

Pupils per qualified teacher
15.5
England 18.5

Full-time-equivalent, 2025/26.

School Workforce Census, DfE. The ratio counts full-time-equivalent qualified teachers; retention follows teachers in post one November to the next. Open Government Licence v3.0.

The area around the school

Child poverty (IDACI)
4/10more deprived than most of England
Overall deprivation (IMD)
5/10around the middle for England

English Indices of Deprivation 2025 (MHCLG), decile of the small area the school stands in: 1 is the most deprived tenth of England, 10 the least. IDACI counts only children in low-income families, which is the measure closest to the intake a school is likely to draw on.

Census 2021This areaEngland
Adults with a degree or higher27%33.9%
Adults with no qualifications23.5%18.1%
In managerial or professional work27.2%33.2%
Households deprived in two or more ways12.7%18.1%
Residents in very good health51.7%48.5%
Homes owned by the occupier84.2%62.3%
Social housing1%17.1%
Privately rented14.8%20.5%
Detached houses20.3%22.9%
Flats0.4%22.2%
Homes with four or more bedrooms22.5%21.1%
Households with no car or van10.9%23.5%

Census 2021 (ONS) for statistical area E01004880 (a lower layer super output area), the neighbourhood of roughly 1,137 adults that the school stands in. These figures describe the area, not the pupils. Children travel in from further away, and for selective, faith and some other schools usually much further. Open Government Licence v3.0.

What homes cost nearby

Median sale price
£183,000328 sales within 1 km, January 2024 to July 2026
Typical range
£141,500–£225,000the middle half of sales
England median
£300,000all sales over the same period
Detached (20)£353,500
Semi-detached (197)£200,000
Terraced (104)£140,000
Flat (7)£86,500

Homes around this school are cheaper than three quarters of school neighbourhoods in England, comparing the median within 1 km across every state school.

Inside the Year 7 cutoff distance (1.50 km, 2026 entry): 624 sales, median £170,000. The homes that would have got a child in that year, at the straight-line distance the school last filled to.

Every residential sale registered with HM Land Registry within 1 km of the school (straight line) since January 2024, market sales of houses and flats only. A sale is dated by completion and registered weeks later, so the most recent months are incomplete. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. This data is licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Postcodes located with OS Code-Point Open: contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026; contains Royal Mail data © Royal Mail copyright and database right 2026; contains National Statistics data © Crown copyright and database right 2026.

Roads around the school

Child pedestrian casualties
1an urban school averages 2.0
Collisions at school-run times
2an urban school averages 5.8
All reported collisions
15an urban school averages 30.6
Of those, serious or fatal
2an urban school averages 6.1

Every collision reported to the police within 500 m of the school in 2021–2025, from the Department for Transport's road casualty statistics (STATS19). "Child pedestrians" counts casualties aged under 16 on foot; "school-run times" means weekdays 07:30–09:00 and 15:00–16:30 outside August. A high count usually says the school sits on or near a busy road, not that the school is unsafe: counts rise with traffic and with how built-up an area is, which is why the comparison is with other urban schools. Distances are straight-line from the school's recorded position. Open Government Licence v3.0.

Nearby schools