St Mary's Catholic Primary School
near Dunstable, LU1 4BB · Central Bedfordshire local authority
Dunstable’s School Grade C− better than 18% of towns in England
What stands out about St Mary's Catholic Primary School
- Its own letter, B−: Key Stage 2 results better than 48% of England’s primary schools
- Over capacity: 229 pupils for 210 places
- Ofsted report card, July 2026: achievement expected standard, safeguarding met (shown, not graded)
- Outside any built-up area: listed with Dunstable, the nearest town
- 93% of families who put it first got a place for September 2026 (28 of 30)
- Homes in its postcode sector (LU1 4) sold for a median £434,000; Dunstable’s is £320,000
Results
DfE · Key Stage 2Reading, writing and maths 62%
Met the expected standard, DfE’s 3-year average 2023–2025 · higher than 48% of England’s 14,979 graded primaries · Central Bedfordshire avg 52%
Each subject, 2025
Met the expected standard; the mark is England’s schools · average scaled score: reading 104, maths 105 (100 = the expected standard)
England’s figures are of its graded mainstream state schools, each school counted once; grammar schools are included, which is why the right-hand tail is long. Small cohorts are suppressed.
How hard is it to get a place at St Mary's Catholic Primary School?
93% of the families who put it first got a place for September 2026.
Years when some first choices missed out: 2019 (3), 2022 (1), 2025 (1), 2026 (2). The council runs the coordinated admissions; each school’s rules (siblings, distance, faith) decide who gets in. DfE doesn’t publish the furthest distance offered, so check the council’s admissions booklet for that. St Thomas Catholic Academies Trust sets the admissions rules. Apply through Central Bedfordshire council’s coordinated admissions.
Outline = places offered · green = families who put it first · striped = more first choices than places
93% got their first choice
Dunstable and Central Bedfordshire, side by side
2023–2025All 47 graded primaries in Central Bedfordshire. Schools with more pupils on free school meals usually score lower, so a school above the crowd for its free school meals is doing better than its intake predicts. Dunstable’s schools are coloured by their letter.
Show as a table
| School | Letter | Free school meals | KS2 expected standard |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lark Rise Academy | A | 8% | 81% |
| Leighton Middle School | A | 11% | 77% |
| Raynsford Church of England Academy | A− | 10% | 75% |
| Thornhill Primary School | B+ | 17% | 70% |
| The Vale Academy | B+ | 13% | 70% |
| Derwent Primary School | B+ | 15% | 69% |
| Linslade School | B+ | 9% | 69% |
| Priory Academy | B | 15% | 67% |
| Biggleswade Academy | B | 14% | 66% |
| Caddington Village School | B | 16% | 65% |
| Pix Brook Academy | B | 13% | 65% |
| St Vincent's Catholic Primary School | B− | 13% | 63% |
| St Mary's Catholic Primary School | B− | 23% | 62% |
| Robert Peel Primary School | B− | 27% | 61% |
| Lancot School | B− | 13% | 61% |
| Slip End Village School | C+ | 20% | 59% |
| Maple Tree Primary School | C+ | 12% | 59% |
| Hadrian Academy | C+ | 10% | 58% |
| Ashton St Peter's VA C of E School | C | 15% | 56% |
| Etonbury Academy | C | 15% | 56% |
| Ardley Hill Academy | C | 13% | 55% |
| St Christophers Academy | C | 9% | 54% |
| Alameda Middle School | C− | 11% | 52% |
| Fulbrook School | C− | 17% | 51% |
| Langford Village Academy | C− | 18% | 50% |
| Houghton Regis Primary School | C− | 18% | 49% |
| Robert Bloomfield Academy | C− | 13% | 49% |
| Lime Tree Primary Academy | C− | 31% | 49% |
| Moggerhanger Primary School | D | 14% | 47% |
| Eaton Bray Academy | D | 25% | 47% |
| Arnold Academy | D | 14% | 47% |
| Brooklands Middle School | D | 16% | 46% |
| Holywell School | D | 17% | 46% |
| Clifton All Saints Academy | D | 10% | 46% |
| Parkfields Middle School | D | 11% | 46% |
| Tithe Farm Primary School | D | 22% | 45% |
| St Swithun's Church of England VC Primary School | D | 17% | 42% |
| St. Augustine's Academy | D | 40% | 42% |
| Meppershall Church of England Academy | D | 17% | 40% |
| John Donne Church of England Primary School | D | 17% | 39% |
| Kensworth Church of England Academy | D− | 28% | 38% |
| Everton Heath Primary School | D− | 23% | 37% |
| Thomas Whitehead Church of England Academy | D− | 38% | 36% |
| Woodland Middle School Academy | D− | 18% | 34% |
| Edward Peake CofE VC School | D− | 28% | 33% |
| Beecroft Academy | D− | 19% | 30% |
| Totternhoe Church of England Academy | D− | 18% | 30% |
Who goes here
DfE school census, January 2025240 pupils. SEN support is extra help in school for a special educational need; an EHC plan is the council’s legal plan for pupils who need more.
Girls and boys
St Mary's Catholic Primary School’s letter
Its own results against England’s schools, not the town’s School Grade.
How school letters are worked out
Each school’s measure is compared with every graded school in England of the same phase: for primaries, the share of pupils meeting the expected standard in reading, writing and maths (DfE’s three-year average); for secondaries, Attainment 8 and the share with grade 5 or above in English and maths, each turned into a z-score against England’s schools and averaged. The letter comes from the share of those schools it beats, in the same bands as every grade on the site. The same method gives U.S. schools their letters, against their own state.
Graded: England’s open mainstream state schools with published results (grammar schools included, which select by test). Not graded: special schools, alternative provision, nurseries, 16–19 colleges, UTCs and studio schools, Welsh schools. Ofsted plays no part.
Ofsted inspections
Shown, not graded: Ofsted is never part of a letter or the School Grade.
Report card, inspection starting July 2026.
Before the report card: Graded inspection: Good, April 2022.
Living near St Mary's Catholic Primary School
For families thinking of moving: what homes cost around the school, and the other schools close by.
Home prices in LU1 4, the school’s postcode sector
Dunstable property prices →Median sale price each year, 2010 to 2025
By type, the 36 months to August 2026
Homes in LU1 4 sell for well over Dunstable’s typical price. HM Land Registry Price Paid, standard sales. Catchments aren’t published, so the postcode sector stands in for “around the school”.
Schools within 1.6 miles
11 state schoolsLocation
Directions ↗near Dunstable, LU1 4BB
St Mary's Catholic Primary School: common questions
Is St Mary's Catholic Primary School a good school?
By its published results, about average: its Key Stage 2 results are better than 48% of England’s primary schools (its letter is B−), with 62% of pupils meeting the expected standard in reading, writing and maths, against 62% for England’s schools. Ofsted: a report card in July 2026.
How hard is it to get into St Mary's Catholic Primary School?
For September 2026, 30 families put St Mary's Catholic Primary School first and 28 of them were offered a place; 28 places were offered in all.
What is St Mary's Catholic Primary School’s Ofsted rating?
Its latest inspection (July 2026) gave a report card: achievement expected standard, safeguarding met. Ofsted stopped giving one-word overall grades in September 2024.
How much do houses cost near St Mary's Catholic Primary School?
Homes in its postcode sector, LU1 4, sold for a median £434,000 over the 36 months to August 2026 (257 sales).
Sources: DfE Get Information about Schools (16 October 2026), Key Stage 2 performance tables (2023–2025, three-year average) and Key Stage 4 (2025/26, provisional); Ofsted state-funded school inspections as at 30 September 2026. All under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Also: DfE Key Stage 4 performance, schools data (2023/24 and 2024/25 final, 2025/26 provisional) and Key Stage 2 performance tables 2024/25 by subject; DfE school census, January 2025; DfE school-level applications and offers, September 2019 to 2026 entry; HM Land Registry Price Paid by postcode sector, 2010 to August 2026.
A school’s letter is our own summary of its published results against England’s schools of the same phase; Dunstable’s School Grade is a separate grade, built from the results of the schools in and around the town against other towns. Map: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026 (ONS boundaries). Northern Ireland: Source: NISRA; contains Land & Property Services data and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland information, © Crown copyright, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Scotland: contains National Records of Scotland data, Registers of Scotland data and SEPA data, © Crown copyright / © SEPA 2025, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.