St Francis Catholic Primary School

About St Francis Catholic Primary School

St Francis Catholic Primary School in North Somerset has turned a corner. Its most recent Ofsted inspection in September 2024 awarded a Good rating across the board for quality of education, personal development, behaviour and attitudes, and leadership and management. This is a significant improvement from its previous inspection in January 2020, where the school was rated Inadequate overall. The turnaround is reflected in the school's academic performance at Key Stage 2. In the 2023/24 academic year, 65% of pupils met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined, which is above the North Somerset local authority average of 61%. This places St Francis 24th out of 57 primary schools in the local authority, putting it in the top half of schools in the area.

Digging into the individual subject scores, the school shows particular strength in reading. Pupils achieved an average scaled score of 109 in reading, with 45% reaching the higher standard. In maths, the average scaled score was 107, and 35% of pupils hit the higher standard. Writing results were more modest, with 80% reaching the expected standard but only 10% achieving the higher mark. The school's overall ranking score of 65 places it 5,940th nationally out of 13,686 primary schools, which is around the 43rd percentile. Parent feedback is overwhelmingly positive. In the most recent Parent View survey, 100% of the 41 respondents said they would recommend the school, and 90% strongly agreed that their child is happy at the school. Every single parent agreed that the school has high expectations for their child.

St Francis is a small Roman Catholic primary school with 143 pupils on roll against a capacity of 210, so there is some room for growth. However, it is currently oversubscribed: for the 2025/26 academic year, there were 31 applications for just 6 places, giving an oversubscription ratio of over 5 to 1. The school offers a range of facilities including a sensory room, ICT suite, art studios and a chapel. Sports provision covers football, tennis, cricket, gymnastics, cross country and dance, while clubs include choir, drama, chess, art, eco and book club. The school supports children with a variety of special educational needs, including specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, moderate learning difficulties, social, emotional and mental health needs, speech, language and communication needs, and autistic spectrum disorder. This is a school that has clearly improved rapidly and is now delivering strong academic outcomes in a supportive, faith-based environment, though securing a place will be competitive.

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