Millwood Primary School Achieves IQM Flagship Award

August 14, 2026

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Millwood Primary School has secured IQM Inclusive School Award Flagship status, recognising its strong culture of inclusion and its determination to provide every child with the opportunities, encouragement and support needed to succeed.

A School Where Everyone Belongs

Millwood Primary School is situated in Radcliffe and is Bury’s only ‘Primary Special School.’ The school caters for pupils with profound and multiple learning difficulties, severe learning difficulties, complex medical and physical conditions and children who are recognised with autistic spectrum condition, bringing a large range of diverse needs to meet.

Millwood Primary is a, “highly inspiring, outstanding, inclusive place to be.” A place where entitlement, opportunity and challenge are championed. All involved pride themselves by going the extra mile and making a difference to the pupils and families in their school community and beyond. They believe in making their pupils world class learners, developing in them a confidence and thirst for knowledge, enabling them to realise their talents and create their own future. Professionals are innovative, delivering outstanding professional practice to ensure that they realise their vision for education excellence and they place no ceiling on pupils’ success.

Outstanding Specialist Support

All staff are experts at using the information that they have about each pupil to break down learning into even smaller, manageable steps. Staff and therapists work together to help pupils achieve these small but important steps. Adults are highly attuned to how pupils are feeling and responding in lessons. They expertly use this knowledge to maximise moments of engagement or to give pupils a break from learning. Going further, all staff work to offer a range of lunchtime clubs that children can access with peers throughout school. These include Fidget Fingers, Dance Club, Green Screen, Parachute, Transport Club, Football.

There are excellent indoor facilities including a light and dark room, a rebound therapy room, a theatre, a hydrotherapy pool, two themed soft playrooms, a teaching kitchen, S.I. room and spacious classrooms with additional group rooms. Excellent outdoor facilities include a sensory tunnel, multi-use games area, cycle track, wheelchair swing, football pitch, mobility trail, Wig Wam Village, adventure playground, biodiversity garden and orchard, bandstand, a pagoda, and each classroom has their own outdoor learning environment.

Opening Up the World

Opening the world up to pupils is a top priority and pupils benefit from a memorable range of activities to promote their wider personal development. This includes involvement in many local community projects and access to a wide range of clubs, such as football, singing and signing, junk modelling, links to both Manchester City Primary League and local rugby coaches. Pupils enjoy visits to Meadowcroft Farm, Heaton Bark, Bridgewater Hall, Foundation 92, Manchester Science and Industry Museum and the local Leisure Centre for swimming sessions. Impressively the PE Subject Lead ensures that each pupil has a personal and community challenge to complete each year and any barrier is quickly removed. Sporting opportunities include Special Needs Games, The Pentathlon, Boccia and Curling. Impressively all forms of public transport are used to ensure that any lack of specialist buses, does not mean, pupils do not go.

No Ceiling on Success

Leaders have the highest expectations of what pupils can achieve in their learning and behaviour. Behaviour is exemplary. The school is calm and orderly for everyone as adults are highly attuned to the feelings and anxieties of pupils and are successful at minimising them. They quietly and skilfully help pupils to learn to manage their behaviour and their emotions, dealing with any issues immediately and sensitively.

The school’s curriculum places no ceiling on pupils’ success and prepares them exceptionally well for their next steps in education and life in modern Britain. At the heart of the school’s work are leaders who are determined that all pupils will have a voice, and a school that practises unconditional positive regard for all.

The school’s systematic approach to developing communication begins the day children arrive in Early Years. Adults carefully consider the best way to use the wide range of strategies available to help pupils communicate. They use visual signing and picture- based communication systems to help pupils build their attention, listening skills and engage in activities. They also encourage pupils to make choices, express their views and assert their rights, rights that are clearly known and embedded in the vision, values and ethos at the core of Millwood Primary. The school rightly prides itself on superb pastoral care, actively promoting equality and diversity, and is therefore an extremely welcoming, superbly inclusive and extremely caring school. Everyone involved at all levels is fully committed to maximising the achievement of every child, and the school and its community should be justifiably proud of their success in this respect, where no one is left out or behind, they are a family where everyone belongs.

Find Out More About IQM

The Inclusion Quality Mark provides schools with a nationally recognised framework for developing and celebrating inclusive practice.

If your school is interested in achieving the IQM Inclusive School Award, contact the IQM team on 028 7127 7857 or email admin@iqmaward.com.

To find out more about IQM and request a free information pack, visit www.iqmaward.com.