Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School

About Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School

Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School in Islington holds a Good rating from Ofsted, a grade it has maintained since its most recent graded inspection in 2013, when it was judged Outstanding overall. The school’s most recent ungraded inspection in 2022 confirmed it remains Good, with leadership and management still rated Outstanding. On the key academic metric for primary schools, the proportion of pupils reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined at Key Stage 2 stands at 49%. That is well below the Islington local authority average of 68% and places the school 36th out of 39 primaries in the borough, in the bottom 50% nationally. However, the picture is more nuanced: 71% of pupils met the expected standard in reading, and 73% in writing, with maths at 60%. The proportion reaching the higher standard in all three subjects is just 5%, though 20% did so in maths alone.

Average scaled scores tell a similar story: 103 in reading and 102 in maths, both just above the national baseline of 100. The school’s ranking score of 49 puts it in the bottom tier of Islington primaries, and it sits 1.4 km from the nearest Outstanding-rated school, Gillespie Primary School. That said, Sacred Heart serves a significantly disadvantaged intake: 50.9% of pupils are eligible for free school meals, more than double the national average. In that context, the school’s results are perhaps less surprising, and the Ofsted report notes that behaviour and attitudes, while not separately graded in the most recent inspection, were previously strong. The school has no sixth form, as it is a primary, and does not publish Progress 8 scores, so it is difficult to measure how much value it adds relative to its starting points.

Sacred Heart is a Roman Catholic state primary for children aged 3 to 11, with a nursery on site. It is oversubscribed: for 2025/26, there were 94 applications for 52 places, with 44 first-preference offers made. The school has a wide range of facilities, including a forest school, chapel, library, ICT suite, gymnasium and art studios. Sports on offer include cricket, netball, football, swimming, athletics, tennis and dance, and there are clubs for art, drama, choir and film. SEND provision covers specific learning difficulties, speech and language needs, social and emotional mental health, physical disability and autistic spectrum disorder. This is a school that will suit Catholic families in Islington who value its inclusive, faith-based ethos and are comfortable with academic outcomes that reflect a high-needs cohort rather than top-tier league table performance.

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