St Helen's Catholic Primary School

About St Helen's Catholic Primary School

St Helen's Catholic Primary School is a state-funded mixed primary in Southend-on-Sea, run under the Roman Catholic faith and led by headteacher Elizabeth Keeble. It ranks third out of 25 primary schools in the local authority, placing it in the top 12 per cent of schools in the area. The three schools immediately above it in the LA rankings are Bournes Green Junior School, Darlinghurst Academy, and Leigh North Street Primary School. St Helen's sits just 0.4 kilometres from Barons Court Primary School and Nursery, one of only three primaries in Southend-on-Sea rated Outstanding by Ofsted. The school itself holds a Good rating from its most recent graded inspection in February 2023, with inspectors awarding Good across every category: quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management, and early years provision. This represents a consistent performance compared with its previous inspection in 2011, which also rated overall effectiveness as Good.

In the 2023/24 academic year, 77 per cent of St Helen's pupils reached the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined at Key Stage 2. That is well above the local authority average of 61 per cent. The school's ranking score of 77, based on the KS2 reading, writing and maths expected standard metric, puts it in the top 25 per cent nationally. Looking at individual subjects, 85 per cent of pupils met the expected standard in maths, 78 per cent in reading, and 87 per cent in writing. At the higher standard, 33 per cent achieved in maths, 27 per cent in reading, and 12 per cent in writing, while 8 per cent hit the higher benchmark across all three subjects. Average scaled scores were 106 for maths and 105 for reading. Progress measures are not available in the data, so it is not possible to say how much value the school adds relative to pupils' starting points, but the attainment figures are strong against both local and national contexts.

The school is oversubscribed for the 2025/26 intake, with 105 applications for 55 places and 46 first-preference offers, giving an oversubscription ratio of 1.91. Facilities include a sensory room, music rooms, a gymnasium, an ICT suite, and a chapel. Sports offered cover cross country, rounders, tennis, swimming, dance, and cricket, while clubs include eco club, book club, gardening, and science club. The school supports a wide range of special educational needs, including dyslexia, moderate learning difficulty, social and emotional mental health needs, speech and language communication needs, hearing impairment, physical disability, autistic spectrum disorder, and other difficulties. With a 17 per cent free school meals rate and a capacity of 420 pupils currently at 419, St Helen's is a popular, faith-based option for families in Southend-on-Sea who prioritise strong academic outcomes and a broad range of enrichment activities.

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