Lakeside Primary School, Cardiff

Lakeside Primary School is an English-medium school in Wales. Welsh schools are inspected by Estyn rather than Ofsted, and its latest report is published on Estyn's website.

It had 493 pupils in the 2025/26 school census.

4% of pupils are eligible for free school meals (three-year average).

Of its pupils, 4% have additional learning needs; 31% are learning English as an additional language; and 55% are from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.

Year groups range from 52 pupils (Reception) to 63 (Year 1).

Its delegated budget for 2026-27 works out at £5,373 per pupil, against £4,180 in 2021-22. It carried forward £203k of reserves at the end of 2024-25.

Estyn's report on its March 2024 inspection summarises Lakeside Primary School like this:

"Lakeside Primary School is a safe, happy and nurturing learning environment for its pupils. Overall, pupils make good progress from their starting points and most grow into articulate, questioning young people who are developing a strong sense of their community and the wider world. The broad range of pupil voice groups in the school enables many pupils to become involved in discussion and decision-making. This means that they feel listened to by teachers and leaders and can contribute meaningfully to school self-evaluation and play an important role in specific projects. Teachers and support staff offer pupils an interesting range of experiences across the curriculum."

"There is a strong emphasis on cultivating pupils’ literacy, numeracy, well-being, and creative skills in particular. This helps to give pupils the self- confidence and skills they need to apply their learning and think and act creatively in other areas of the curriculum. Although there are plans to improve the teaching of Welsh, the current provision does not enable pupils to make steady, year-on-year progress in developing their Welsh language skills. Effective provision for pupils with additional learning needs in mainstream and in the Wellbeing Class helps them to engage in purposeful learning experiences. Senior leaders have high expectations of themselves, their staff and their pupils."

"They have built up a comprehensive understanding of the school’s strengths and developed a useful approach to self-evaluation that enables them to identify areas for improvement. However, they do not involve other staff in self-evaluation and improvement processes well enough. This means that, although teachers and support staff implement changes diligently in their classes or specific areas, they do not have a clear enough understanding of their involvement, or impact on, improving provision and pupil progress across the school."

Estyn made 2 recommendations: (1) Use the expertise that exists in the school to improve the teaching of Welsh language skills across the school and increase pupil progress; (2) Involve all staff purposefully in identifying, monitoring, evaluating, and reviewing whole-school priorities so that they understand the part they play in improving provision and pupil outcomes across the school more effectively.

Clubs and activities named on the school's website include football and netball.

The school runs after-school care.

The nearest other state primary schools to Lakeside Primary School are Springwood Primary School (0.5 miles), All Saints C.I.W. Primary School (0.6 miles), Rhydypenau Primary School (0.8 miles) and Llanedeyrn Primary School (0.8 miles).

The nearest railway station is Heath Low Level Rail Station, about 990 metres away (roughly a 12-minute walk).

13 bus stops are within a five-minute walk; the closest is Holmwood Close (before), 270 metres away.