St Mary's Roman Catholic Primary School, a Voluntary Academy

About St Mary's Roman Catholic Primary School, a Voluntary Academy

St Mary's Roman Catholic Primary School in Rossendale received an Inadequate rating from Ofsted following its most recent graded inspection in April 2024, a significant decline from the Good rating it held in its previous inspection in 2018. The inspectors judged behaviour and attitudes, as well as leadership and management, as Inadequate, while quality of education, personal development and early years provision were all rated Requires improvement. On academic outcomes, the most telling metric is the Key Stage 2 combined reading, writing and maths expected standard: just 37% of pupils achieved this benchmark, compared with a local authority average of 60% for similar schools. That places the school 28th out of 31 primary schools in Rossendale, and in the bottom 10% nationally. No pupils reached the higher standard across all three subjects, and while reading and writing expected rates were 53% and 63% respectively, maths was notably lower at 42%.

The school's average scaled scores tell a similar story: 100 in reading and 97 in maths, with the maths score falling below the national benchmark of 100. 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. The proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals is very high at 73.1%, which is worth bearing in mind when interpreting these results, as disadvantage can affect cohort-level outcomes. In terms of wider academic context, the nearest outstanding-rated primary is St Peter's Roman Catholic Primary School in Newchurch, 4.3 km away. The school has a nursery provision and serves children from age 3, but has no sixth form.

St Mary's is a small school with 140 pupils against a capacity of 210, and it was oversubscribed for Reception places in 2025/26, receiving 20 applications for 9 places, with all 9 first-preference offers accepted. The school offers a range of facilities including a chapel, library, music rooms, sports hall and playing fields, and runs clubs such as chess, choir, coding, drama and art. Sports on offer include football, cricket, cross country, swimming, rounders and athletics. The school has identified SEND provisions for moderate learning difficulty, social emotional and mental health needs, speech language and communication needs, visual impairment and autistic spectrum disorder. For families considering this school, the Inadequate rating will be a major concern, but the oversubscription suggests it remains popular locally, and the high FSM rate indicates a community with significant socioeconomic challenges that the school is working within.

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