First Base Ipswich Academy, Ipswich

Ofsted's report card from its 12 May 2026 inspection grades First Base Ipswich Academy on 6 areas: 2 strong standard and 4 expected standard. Report cards replaced single-word judgements in November 2025, on a five-point scale from exceptional to urgent improvement.

Attendance and behaviour - Strong standard. "Leaders provide highly effective strategic oversight of attendance and behaviour."

Inclusion - Strong standard. "Leaders and staff are highly ambitious for pupils."

Achievement - Expected standard. "Leaders ensure that pupils, including pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those with previously disrupted educational experiences, increasingly engage positively in learning."

Curriculum and teaching - Expected standard. "Leaders have sustained the school's long established, high-quality curriculum."

Leadership and governance - Expected standard. "Leaders and trustees have an unwavering ambition for pupils and for the role of the school within the wider local offer in Suffolk."

Personal development and wellbeing - Expected standard. "Leaders have developed an inclusive approach to supporting pupils' personal development and wellbeing."

Safeguarding standards were met.

Ofsted's next steps for the school: "Leaders should ensure that teaching uses assessment information more precisely for pupils in the newer curriculum pathway, so that pupils build securely on prior learning and consistently sustain and apply their knowledge, skills and understanding across the wider curriculum and throughout the school day"; "Trustees and leaders, working collectively with partner schools and the local authority, should ensure that there are precise, shared and clearly accountable success measures for jointly reviewing the effectiveness of the newer curriculum pathway for the pupils who access it".

Across Suffolk, 95% of families were offered their first-choice primary school for 2026 entry, and 99% were offered one of the schools they named.

In 2026, families in Suffolk lodged 69 appeals against primary school offers; 34 reached a hearing and 14 succeeded (41.2% of those heard).

The nearest other state primary schools to First Base Ipswich Academy are Piper's Vale Primary - A Paradigm Academy (under 0.1 miles, Good, 56% reading, 51% maths); Morland Church of England Primary School (0.4 miles, Good, 56% reading, 44% maths); Murrayfield Primary - A Paradigm Academy (0.6 miles, Good, 67% reading, 67% maths); and Cliff Lane Primary School (0.6 miles, Good, 76% reading, 81% maths).

First Base Ipswich Academy is one of 7 schools run by Raedwald Trust, an academy trust.

The nearest railway station is Entrance3, about 1.1 miles away in a straight line.

15 bus stops are within a five-minute walk; the closest is Bonnington Road (opposite), 80 metres away.

Measured by the 2025 English Indices of Deprivation, the neighbourhood First Base Ipswich Academy stands in is among the 10% most deprived neighbourhoods in England. This describes where the school is, not where its pupils live.

In August 2026, police recorded 135 crimes within a mile of the school, most often violence and sexual offences, shoplifting and other theft. That is well above the typical figure around schools in Suffolk (32), as is usual near a town centre.

The secondary schools closest to First Base Ipswich Academy are Ipswich Academy (0.6 miles), Stoke High School - Ormiston Academy (1.3 miles) and Copleston High School (1.5 miles).