Sully Primary School, Penarth

Sully 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 385 pupils in the 2025/26 school census.

11% of pupils are eligible for free school meals (three-year average).

Of its pupils, 5% have additional learning needs (8% in 2020/21); 5% are learning English as an additional language; and 17% are from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.

Year groups range from 35 pupils (Reception) to 51 (Year 1).

Its delegated budget for 2026-27 works out at £4,649 per pupil, against £3,321 in 2021-22. It carried forward £79k of reserves at the end of 2024-25.

Estyn's report on its July 2022 inspection summarises Sully Primary School like this:

"Sully Primary School is a nurturing and vibrant place for pupils, staff and visitors. All pupils and their families receive a sincere welcome. Pupils enjoy coming to school and are proud to be a part of such a reassuring learning environment. Teachers and support staff are always there to help when needed. The headteacher, teachers and support staff take very good care of the pupils and want them to thrive in learning and in life. They offer pupils an impressive variety of school experiences, all of which help to keep pupils interested and make learning exciting."

"The school grounds offer a wonderful environment to extend pupils’ learning. However, the school does not always make good enough use of this learning opportunity. Pupils know that staff expect them to behave well and respect everyone in the school and the community. The engagement of pupils in their learning, and their excellent behaviour, are notable strengths of the school. Many pupils make good progress and achieve well, especially considering the disruption to their learning caused by the pandemic in recent years. Leaders have identified that teachers need to provide more challenging learning experiences for pupils to improve their progress and independence."

"The headteacher provides strong leadership and generally knows the school well. She has identified important areas of the school’s work that she wants to improve. This includes improving elements of day-to-day classroom assessment that will help to move pupils on in their learning. The headteacher values the opinions of staff, pupils, parents and governors, and uses these to improve the school. The current leadership team is relatively new, but members trust each other and work well together to provide good support for colleagues."

Estyn made 3 recommendations: (1) Address the health and safety issue raised during the inspection; (2) Strengthen teaching to ensure that it meets the needs of all individual learners; (3) Develop pupil independence, including when using the outdoors.

The nearest other state primary schools to Sully Primary School are Palmerston Primary School (1.3 miles), Cadoxton Community Primary (1.8 miles), Holton Primary School (2 miles) and St Andrews Major C.I.W. Primary School (2 miles).

The nearest railway station is Cadoxton Rail Station, about 1.5 miles away in a straight line.

4 bus stops are within a five-minute walk; the closest is Burnham Avenue (after), 190 metres away.