St Joseph's Catholic Primary and Nursery School

St Joseph's Catholic Primary and Nursery School is performing well overall. This was its first routine section 5 inspection, although the school had previously been judged outstanding before it opened as an academy. It is now part of the Dunstan Catholic Educational Trust, and inspectors found all key areas to be good. Pupils enjoy school, feel cared for and benefit from warm relationships with staff, while leaders and the trust are ambitious for every pupil.

Strengths

• Pupils feel cared for and enjoy warm relationships with staff.
• The school has high expectations for all pupils to achieve well.
• Leaders have taken decisive action to improve curriculum sequencing and teaching.
• Staff report positively on the training they receive to teach the curriculum well.
• Governance, including the trust, knows the school well and is ambitious for pupils.
• In most subjects, essential knowledge is clearly identified from the early years upwards.
• Reading is a top priority and pupils are becoming confident readers.
• Pupils with SEND are identified accurately and promptly, and teaching is adapted for them.
• Most pupils behave well, are motivated to learn and treat each other with respect.
• The school has worked meticulously to remove barriers to attendance, and pupils attend well.
• Pupils benefit from a broad personal development programme and many leadership roles.
• Safeguarding arrangements are effective.

Areas for Improvement

• In some wider curriculum subjects, the essential knowledge pupils need to learn is not well defined.
• Curriculum checks in some wider subjects are not precise enough, so some pupils do not build new learning on prior knowledge.
• Some pupils with SEND do not have sufficiently precise academic targets identifying small measurable steps.
• Reviews of some SEND targets do not detail how well pupils are achieving, so some pupils do not make all the progress they are capable of.
• Less established early years routines sometimes reduce children's engagement and concentration.
• Early years disengagement makes it harder for staff to check learning and identify children needing further support, leaving some children with gaps.

Admissions: local authority offers data from the Department for Education. A school is oversubscribed when at least 5% of the families who put it first were not offered a place, and undersubscribed when everyone who put it first got in but 10% or more of its places were unfilled in the Department's school capacity survey (the latest survey is used for entry years it does not cover). Places: Department for Education, School capacity, from local authorities' annual survey as at 1 May. Each year is the one the school year ends in (2025 is 2024–25); the survey was not run in 2020. Places include sixth form places. Forecasts are the local authority's own for the school's planning area, an area it uses to plan places that is not the school's catchment area. The forecast starts from a head count in 2025; the dashed line is the Department's estimate of places in that area, including those the authority has firm plans for. Planned places are cumulative, and only those with firm plans are counted.

In 2024–25 pupils at St Joseph's Catholic Primary and Nursery School attended 95.6% of sessions (the national figure for primary schools was 94.8%). 10.1% of pupils were persistently absent, missing at least one session in ten (nationally 13.0%).

Sessions missed

Pupils persistently absent

Source: Department for Education, Pupil absence in schools in England. Each year is the one the school year ends in (2025 is 2024/25). Persistent absence means missing 10% or more of sessions; severe absence means 50% or more. No figures were published for 2019/20.

In 2024–25, 0.4% of pupils at St Joseph's Catholic Primary and Nursery School were suspended at least once (nationally 1.1%). No pupils were permanently excluded.

Pupils suspended at least once

Source: Department for Education, Suspensions and permanent exclusions in England. Each year is the one the school year ends in (2025 is 2024/25). A pupil can be suspended more than once, so suspensions per 100 pupils can be higher than the share of pupils suspended. Very small numbers are hidden by the DfE. Exclusion figures dropped in 2020 and 2021 because of school closures.

In 2025–26 St Joseph's Catholic Primary and Nursery School had 21.8 pupils for each teacher (the national figure for primary schools was 20.7). Of its teachers in 2024–25, 9.6% were no longer at the school a year later (nationally 15.7%).

Pupils per teacher

Teachers who left the school within a year

Source: Department for Education, School workforce in England. Each year is the one the school year ends in (2025 is 2024/25). Pupils per teacher counts full-time-equivalent pupils and teachers. Turnover is the share of a year's teachers (full-time equivalent) who were not at the school the following year, whether they moved to another school or left state-funded teaching. Turnover and sickness figures run one year behind the ratios. Sick leave is the share of teachers who took at least one day in the year, so it swings widely at small schools, where a few teachers can make it 0% or 100%. The national figures are for all state schools of the same type.

In 2025–26, 13.2% of pupils at St Joseph's Catholic Primary and Nursery School were on SEN support (nationally 15.4%) and 2.3% had an education, health and care (EHC) plan (nationally 4.1%).

Pupils by main type of need

Source: Department for Education, Special educational needs in England (the 2025–26 school census). SEN support is extra help in school without an EHC plan. National figures are for all state-funded primary schools. Counts are as published, with small numbers not hidden.

In 2024–25 St Joseph's Catholic Primary and Nursery School received £6,527 and spent £6,366 for each of its 259 pupils. It ended the year with reserves of £498,000 (£1,926 per pupil).

Across all 13 schools of The Dunstan Catholic Educational Trust, income was £6,402 and spending £6,277 per pupil.

Income per pupil

Spending per pupil

Source: Department for Education, Financial Benchmarking and Insights Tool. Each year is the one the financial year ends in (2024 is 2023–24). Academy figures include a share of the trust's central services, shared out by pupil numbers, and are rounded to the nearest £1,000. Premises costs were defined differently from 2024, so compare them across that gap with care.

• Primary Schools
• Secondary Schools

All schools in Somerset · Somerset local authority: places and applications

St Joseph's Catholic Primary and Nursery School is part of The Dunstan Catholic Educational Trust, which runs 13 schools. The nearest others:

• Corpus Christi Catholic Primary School Weston-Super-Mare
• St Joseph's Catholic Primary School, Bridgwater Bridgwater
• St Joseph and St Teresa Catholic Primary School Wells
• St Benedict's Catholic Primary School Radstock
• St Gildas Catholic Primary School Yeovil
• Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Primary Wincanton
• St Mary's Catholic Primary School Bath
• St John's Catholic Primary School Bath
• St Louis Catholic Primary School, Frome Frome
• St Mary's Catholic Primary School Chippenham

What is St Joseph's Catholic Primary and Nursery School's Ofsted rating?

The latest Ofsted rating for St Joseph's Catholic Primary and Nursery School is Good, from an inspection in April 2025.

When was St Joseph's Catholic Primary and Nursery School last inspected by Ofsted?

St Joseph's Catholic Primary and Nursery School was last inspected in April 2025.

How many pupils does St Joseph's Catholic Primary and Nursery School have?

St Joseph's Catholic Primary and Nursery School has 265 pupils on roll.

What age range does St Joseph's Catholic Primary and Nursery School cover?

St Joseph's Catholic Primary and Nursery School for pupils aged 3 to 11.

What are St Joseph's Catholic Primary and Nursery School's SATs (KS2) results?

In 2025, 66% of Year 6 pupils met the expected standard in reading, writing and maths.

Where is St Joseph's Catholic Primary and Nursery School?

St Joseph's Catholic Primary and Nursery School is at Oxford Street, Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset, TA8 1LG.