St Mary's Catholic Primary School

About St Mary's Catholic Primary School

Parents considering St Mary’s Catholic Primary School in Nottingham will find a school that is clearly popular locally. For the 2025/26 intake, the school received 60 applications for just 29 places, giving an oversubscription ratio of 2.07. Of those applications, 28 were first-preference choices, meaning almost every place went to a family who had listed St Mary’s as their top pick. That level of demand suggests a strong reputation among local parents, though it’s worth noting that the school does not publish a parent-view survey or a specific recommendation percentage, so we can’t quantify satisfaction directly. The school is a state-funded Roman Catholic primary for mixed-gender pupils aged 3 to 11, with a nursery on site. Headteacher Kerry O’Neill leads a school that currently has 239 pupils, slightly above its official capacity of 210, which may explain the competition for places.

Academically, St Mary’s sits in the middle of the pack in Nottingham. In the 2023/24 Key Stage 2 results, 60% of pupils reached the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined, exactly matching the local authority average of 60%. That places the school 36th out of 72 primary schools in Nottingham, in the bottom half of the LA rankings. The proportion reaching the higher standard in all three subjects was 13%, while 30% achieved higher scores in maths and reading individually. Average scaled scores were 106 in maths and 105 in reading, both slightly above the national benchmark of 100. The school’s most recent Ofsted inspection, in November 2022, rated it Good overall, with Good across all five categories including quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership, and early years provision. This was a downgrade from its previous Outstanding rating in 2007, but the school has held a Good rating across both its recent inspections.

St Mary’s offers a solid range of facilities for a primary of its size, including an ICT suite, gymnasium, outdoor playground, playing fields, art studios and a chapel. Sports provision covers rounders, gymnastics, netball, tennis and athletics, while clubs include choir, film club and drama. The school has a broad SEND offer, with provisions for specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, moderate learning difficulty, social and emotional mental health needs, speech and language communication needs, and autistic spectrum disorder. Given its oversubscription, families living within the Catholic catchment or with a strong connection to the parish will likely have an advantage in admissions. The school suits parents who want a faith-based primary with a balanced academic profile, good facilities and a clear SEND support structure, but who are also realistic about its mid-table ranking within Nottingham’s primary landscape.

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