St Joseph's Catholic Primary School Pontefract

About St Joseph's Catholic Primary School Pontefract

St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School Pontefract was rated Good overall in its most recent Ofsted inspection in 2024, a change from the Outstanding rating it received in 2012. The inspection report rated every category — quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management, and early years provision — as Good. On the key academic measure for primary schools, the proportion of pupils reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined stood at 73% in the 2023/24 academic year. That is comfortably above the Wakefield local authority average of 64% and places the school 28th out of 97 primary schools in the area, putting it in the top 30% locally. Nationally, it ranks in the top quarter of all primary schools. The school’s ranking score of 73 reflects solid, above-average performance across the core subjects.

Looking more closely at the individual subjects, the school’s strongest result was in writing, where 90% of pupils met the expected standard, followed by maths at 87% and reading at 77%. The proportion reaching the higher standard in all three subjects was 7%, with maths the strongest subject at the higher level at 23%. Average scaled scores were 105 in maths and 104 in reading, both slightly above the national average of 100. The school does not publish progress scores for reading, writing or maths, so it is not possible to compare how much value it adds relative to pupils’ starting points. However, the attainment figures alone suggest a school where most children leave Year 6 with secure foundations in the basics. The school’s 9.3% of pupils eligible for free school meals is below the national average, which may partly explain the above-average outcomes.

St Joseph’s is a Roman Catholic primary with a nursery for children aged three and above, and it is oversubscribed: for 30 places in 2025/26, there were 71 applications, with 30 first-preference applications and 28 first-preference offers. The oversubscription ratio of 2.37 means competition for places is significant. Facilities include a chapel, a sensory room, a forest school area, an ICT suite, art studios and a library. Sports on offer include netball, gymnastics, football, athletics, cricket and cross country, while clubs cover science, film and coding. The school supports a range of special educational needs, including dyslexia, speech and language difficulties, hearing impairment, physical disability and social, emotional and mental health needs. For families prioritising strong core attainment in a faith-based setting with good facilities and a clear catchment, St Joseph’s is a strong contender in the Pontefract area.

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