St Mary's Roman Catholic Primary School

About St Mary's Roman Catholic Primary School

St Mary's Roman Catholic Primary School sits below the Suffolk local authority average for its key stage 2 headline measure, with 55% of pupils reaching the expected standard in reading, writing and maths combined, compared with the LA average of 58%. That places the school in the bottom half of primary schools nationally, ranking 137th out of 253 similar schools in Suffolk. However, the picture is more nuanced when you look at individual subjects. Reading scores are a relative strength: 74% of pupils met the expected standard and 32% achieved a higher standard, with an average scaled score of 105. Maths also performed reasonably well, with 68% at expected and an average score of 103. Writing was the weakest area, with only 71% at expected and just 6% reaching the higher standard. The school's overall ranking in East Suffolk is 45th out of 72, placing it in the 62.5th percentile locally.

The school's most recent Ofsted inspection in April 2024 saw it upgraded from Requires Improvement to Good across all five key areas, including quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development, leadership and management, and early years provision. This is a significant turnaround from the previous inspection in March 2022, where overall effectiveness was rated Requires Improvement and both quality of education and leadership were graded 3. The improvement is consistent across the board, with every category now rated Good. At key stage 2, the school's combined expected standard score of 55 is below the LA average of 58, but the individual reading and maths scores are closer to typical local performance. The school ranks in the bottom 50 nationally on the combined metric, but within East Suffolk it sits in the middle of the pack. There is no Progress 8 data available for this primary school, so it is not possible to compare pupil progress against the LA average.

St Mary's is a small Roman Catholic primary school with 175 pupils against a capacity of 210, so there is some room for growth. It was oversubscribed for 2025/26 admissions, with 18 applications for 11 places and all 11 first-preference offers accepted, giving an oversubscription ratio of 1.64. The school offers a strong range of facilities including a forest school, chapel, ICT suite, sports hall, art studios and library. Sports provision is broad, with tennis, athletics, rounders, gymnastics, cross country, swimming and cricket, and clubs include gardening, drama and coding. SEND support covers moderate learning difficulty, speech and language communication, visual impairment and autistic spectrum disorder. The nearest outstanding-rated primary school is Woods Loke Primary School, 3.2 km away. This school will suit families who value a faith-based setting with a recent track record of improvement, and who are comfortable with academic results that are slightly below the local average but with clear strengths in reading.

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