Southtown Primary School

About Southtown Primary School

If you're researching Southtown Primary School, the first thing you'll notice is how popular it is locally. For the 2025/26 intake, the school received 46 applications for just 17 places, giving an oversubscription ratio of 2.71. Of those, 16 families put it as their first preference, and all 16 were offered a place. That level of demand suggests it's a school that local parents actively want their children to attend. However, the most recent Ofsted inspection in 2023 rated the school as Requires Improvement overall, with behaviour and attitudes also marked as Requires Improvement. On the positive side, inspectors judged the quality of education, early years provision, personal development, and leadership and management all as Good. Compared with its previous inspection in 2019, where the school also received Requires Improvement overall, the leadership and management has moved up from Requires Improvement to Good, which signals some progress in how the school is being run.

Academically, the picture is mixed. In the 2023/24 Key Stage 2 results, 28% of pupils reached the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined. That's well below the local authority average of 52% for Norfolk primary schools. No pupils achieved the higher standard across all three subjects. Looking at individual subjects, 48% met the expected standard in reading, 56% in writing, and 40% in maths. Average scores were 101 in reading and 97 in maths, both below the national average. The school ranks bottom of all 27 primary schools in Great Yarmouth on the combined expected standard metric, and in the bottom 50 nationally. That said, the school serves a community with high levels of disadvantage — 40.1% of pupils are eligible for free school meals, more than double the national average — which is an important context for understanding these results.

Southtown Primary School is a state primary for mixed genders aged 4 to 11, with no nursery or sixth form provision. It has a capacity of 220 and currently has 192 pupils on roll. The school offers a range of facilities including a dining hall, sports hall, playing fields, library, ICT suite and a chapel. Sports on offer include cricket, football, tennis and dance, and there are clubs such as art, film, coding, science, eco and book club. The school has identified SEND provisions for specific learning difficulties including dyslexia, moderate learning difficulty, social emotional and mental health needs, speech language and communication needs, and autistic spectrum disorder. For families considering this school, the high oversubscription rate shows it's in demand, but the academic outcomes and Ofsted rating mean it's worth visiting and asking about how the school is addressing the behaviour concerns raised by inspectors.

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