St Mary's & St Patrick's Catholic Primary School, Bridgend

St Mary's & St Patrick's Catholic 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 200 pupils in the 2025/26 school census.

24% of pupils are eligible for free school meals (three-year average).

Of its pupils, 3% have additional learning needs (8% in 2020/21); and 5% are from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.

Year groups range from 19 pupils (Year 1) to 29 (Year 5).

Its delegated budget for 2026-27 works out at £4,685 per pupil, against £3,614 in 2021-22. It ended 2024-25 with a deficit of £78k.

Estyn's report on its January 2023 inspection summarises St Mary's & St Patrick's Catholic Primary School like this:

"St Mary’s and St Patrick’s Catholic Primary School provides a caring and inclusive environment for its pupils, which encourages them to learn, be happy and enjoy school life. Pupils participate willingly in the activities provided for them and use resources productively to improve their knowledge and understanding across the curriculum. The purposeful working relationships that exist with most of their teachers and other staff support the school’s vision of ‘Learning Together’ successfully. Overall, the school environment promotes beneficial learning opportunities. Learning is particularly successful where the teaching is purposeful and challenges pupils to perform at their best. However, the quality of teaching is inconsistent and the quality of teachers’ feedback to pupils does not help them to improve their work effectively."

"Most staff provide strong support, care and guidance for pupils in all aspects of school life. This motivates pupils to focus on their individual learning and well-being. They are keen to learn and they are ambitious and capable learners. As a result, pupils’ behaviour is exemplary. Pupils develop good literacy skills, which includes writing in extended forms effectively. They also develop appropriate digital skills and their numeracy skills across the curriculum are satisfactory."

"Staff make the best use of the school grounds to provide engaging learning experiences in the outdoors for pupils. Leaders evaluate the school's work to plan for improvements well. The new headteacher provides effective leadership. The senior leadership team, most of the staff and the governors share her clear vision, and they work together cohesively to ensure that the school improves. Recent changes to monitoring and evaluation processes highlight the headteacher’s determination to ensure success for the pupils and the community. The new monitoring practices and improvement plans align well to relevant training opportunities for staff to develop their skills, through purposeful professional learning courses."

Estyn made 4 recommendations: (1) Address the site safety issue, identified at the time of inspection; (2) Ensure that the new leadership practices improve the consistency and effectiveness of teaching across the school; (3) Provide effective opportunities for pupils to apply their numeracy and digital competency skills across the curriculum; (4) Ensure that the quality of teachers’ feedback targets the next steps in pupils’ learning effectively.

The nearest other state primary schools to St Mary's & St Patrick's Catholic Primary School are YGG Cynwyd Sant (0.3 miles), Plasnewydd Primary School (0.3 miles), Garth Primary School (0.8 miles) and Nantyffyllon Primary School (1 mile).

The nearest railway station is Maesteg Rail Station, about 380 metres away (roughly a 5-minute walk).

19 bus stops are within a five-minute walk; the closest is Garn Inn (outside), 90 metres away.