Dean Trust Wigan
Orrell, WN5 0DQ · Wigan local authority
Orrell’s School Grade A− better than 77% of towns in England
What stands out about Dean Trust Wigan
- Its own letter, D: GCSE results near the bottom of England’s secondary schools (better than 8%)
- 25% get grade 5 or above in English and maths, 22 points below England’s schools
- Room to spare: 715 pupils for 1,025 places
- 58% of pupils are eligible for free school meals (more than England’s 30%)
- Ofsted report card, June 2026: achievement needs attention, safeguarding met (shown, not graded)
- Every family who put it first got a place for September 2026 (110 of 110)
- Progress 8 of -1.12 in 2023/24, the last year DfE published it: pupils did less well at GCSE than pupils nationally with the same results at 11
- Homes in its postcode sector (WN5 0) sold for a median £145,000; Orrell’s is £219,750
Results
DfE · GCSEs 2025/26, provisional · 139 pupilsEach bar is a group of England’s 3,224 graded secondary schools. The schools Dean Trust Wigan beats are shaded green.
Attainment 8 37.5
Average grade across 8 GCSEs ×10 · higher than 10% of schools · Wigan avg 45.8
Grade 5+ in English and maths 25%
A strong pass · higher than 7% of schools · Wigan avg 43%
Attainment 8, three years
The mark is England’s average that year
Progress 8, 2023/24
-1.12: below average. How pupils did at GCSE against pupils nationally with the same results at 11. Not published since 2023/24 (no Key Stage 2 tests in 2020 and 2021).
Disadvantaged pupils, 2025/26
Attainment 8 for the 76 pupils DfE counts as disadvantaged (free school meals in the last 6 years, or looked after) and the rest, beside England’s schools
England’s figures are of its graded mainstream state schools, each school counted once; grammar schools are included, which is why the right-hand tail is long. Small cohorts are suppressed.
How hard is it to get a place at Dean Trust Wigan?
Every family who put it first got a place for September 2026.
Years when some first choices missed out: 2019 (2), 2020 (2), 2022 (1). The council runs the coordinated admissions; each school’s rules (siblings, distance, faith) decide who gets in. DfE doesn’t publish the furthest distance offered, so check the council’s admissions booklet for that. The Dean Trust sets the admissions rules. Apply through Wigan council’s coordinated admissions.
Outline = places offered · green = families who put it first · striped = more first choices than places
100% got their first choice
Orrell and Wigan, side by side
2025/26All 19 graded secondaries in Wigan. Schools with more pupils on free school meals usually score lower, so a school above the crowd for its free school meals is doing better than its intake predicts. Orrell’s schools are coloured by their letter.
Show as a table
| School | Letter | Free school meals | Attainment 8 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standish Community High School | A− | 18% | 51.9 |
| Shevington High School | B | 26% | 50.4 |
| St Edmund Arrowsmith Catholic High School, Ashton-in-Makerfield | B+ | 16% | 50.4 |
| Bedford High School | B | 40% | 49.2 |
| St Peter's Catholic High School | B | 12% | 49.2 |
| Lowton Church of England High School | B− | 30% | 49.2 |
| Fred Longworth High School | B | 25% | 47.9 |
| St Mary's Catholic High School | B− | 20% | 47.1 |
| Atherton High School | C+ | 47% | 46.2 |
| St John Fisher Catholic High School | C | 33% | 45.5 |
| The Deanery Church of England High School and Sixth Form College | B− | 32% | 45.2 |
| Golborne High School | B− | 25% | 45.1 |
| The Westleigh School | C+ | 44% | 45 |
| Outwood Academy Hindley | C+ | 37% | 44.3 |
| The Byrchall High School | C | 34% | 42.8 |
| Hawkley Hall High School | C+ | 27% | 41.9 |
| Cansfield High School | C | 29% | 41.7 |
| Dean Trust Rose Bridge | C− | 61% | 38.9 |
| Dean Trust Wigan | D | 58% | 37.5 |
Who goes here
DfE school census, January 2025770 pupils. SEN support is extra help in school for a special educational need; an EHC plan is the council’s legal plan for pupils who need more.
Girls and boys
Dean Trust Wigan’s letter
Its own results against England’s schools, not the town’s School Grade.
How school letters are worked out
Each school’s measure is compared with every graded school in England of the same phase: for primaries, the share of pupils meeting the expected standard in reading, writing and maths (DfE’s three-year average); for secondaries, Attainment 8 and the share with grade 5 or above in English and maths, each turned into a z-score against England’s schools and averaged. The letter comes from the share of those schools it beats, in the same bands as every grade on the site. The same method gives U.S. schools their letters, against their own state.
Graded: England’s open mainstream state schools with published results (grammar schools included, which select by test). Not graded: special schools, alternative provision, nurseries, 16–19 colleges, UTCs and studio schools, Welsh schools. Ofsted plays no part.
Ofsted inspections
Shown, not graded: Ofsted is never part of a letter or the School Grade.
Report card, inspection starting June 2026.
Before the report card: Graded inspection: Requires improvement, October 2023.
Living near Dean Trust Wigan
For families thinking of moving: what homes cost around the school, and the other schools close by.
Home prices in WN5 0, the school’s postcode sector
Orrell property prices →Median sale price each year, 2010 to 2025
By type, the 36 months to August 2026
Homes in WN5 0 sell for well under Orrell’s typical price. HM Land Registry Price Paid, standard sales. Catchments aren’t published, so the postcode sector stands in for “around the school”.
Schools within 1.6 miles
14 state schoolsLocation
Directions ↗Orrell, WN5 0DQ
Dean Trust Wigan: common questions
Is Dean Trust Wigan a good school?
By its published results, well below average: its GCSE results are better than 8% of England’s secondary schools (its letter is D), with an Attainment 8 of 37.5 and 25% getting grade 5 or above in English and maths, against 47.3 and 47% for England’s schools. Ofsted: a report card in June 2026.
How hard is it to get into Dean Trust Wigan?
For September 2026, 110 families put Dean Trust Wigan first and all of them were offered a place; 140 places were offered in all.
What is Dean Trust Wigan’s Ofsted rating?
Its latest inspection (June 2026) gave a report card: achievement needs attention, safeguarding met. Ofsted stopped giving one-word overall grades in September 2024.
How much do houses cost near Dean Trust Wigan?
Homes in its postcode sector, WN5 0, sold for a median £145,000 over the 36 months to August 2026 (246 sales).
Sources: DfE Get Information about Schools (16 October 2026), Key Stage 2 performance tables (2023–2025, three-year average) and Key Stage 4 (2025/26, provisional); Ofsted state-funded school inspections as at 30 September 2026. All under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Also: DfE Key Stage 4 performance, schools data (2023/24 and 2024/25 final, 2025/26 provisional) and Key Stage 2 performance tables 2024/25 by subject; DfE school census, January 2025; DfE school-level applications and offers, September 2019 to 2026 entry; HM Land Registry Price Paid by postcode sector, 2010 to August 2026.
A school’s letter is our own summary of its published results against England’s schools of the same phase; Orrell’s School Grade is a separate grade, built from the results of the schools in and around the town against other towns. Map: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026 (ONS boundaries). Northern Ireland: Source: NISRA; contains Land & Property Services data and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland information, © Crown copyright, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Scotland: contains National Records of Scotland data, Registers of Scotland data and SEPA data, © Crown copyright / © SEPA 2025, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.