Inside the primary school that's Greater Manchester's toughest to get a place at

At Greater Manchester's most oversubscribed primary school, headteacher Debbie Hopwood tells teachers one thing - 'if it's not good enough for your own children, it's not good enough for Moorgate'.

It's clearly a mantra that's working, as, once again, Bolton's Moorgate Primary is having to turn children away because there simply isn't enough space.

Official data shows that more than half of parents didn’t get their first choice of a place there. In the last round of applications, 68 parents put the school as their first choice of primary, with only 30 being offered a place for this school year - just 44%.

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So what makes it so special? According to Mrs Hopwood, who has been head there since 2011, it's all about the 'family ethos'.

"We are a family school," she said. "What we do with our children, for our children and for our families, is we look at the bigger picture. We look beyond the classroom and it's about building those relationships.

"I have got staff with young children and if they question anything I say to them 'is this what you would want for your own child'? If the answer is 'no' then we don't do it."

The school is a single form entry, but double in the nursery. The new Mini Moorgate provision for two year olds has grown from 16 to 90 and is provided from a separate building round the corner after they decided to take on the space when a private nursery closed down.

There's also an ASD unit called the Diamonds Hub, for those with autism and special needs, and spaces there have doubled from eight to 16.

The school, in Entwistle Street, Tonge Moor, was rated Outstanding by Ofsted in 2016, a grading it retained following a re-inspection