St Mary's Catholic First School, Dorchester

Academy converter·First school Dorchester, Dorset·DT1 2DD

School type

First school

Ages 2–9

Key Stage 2 performance

St Mary's Catholic First School, Dorchester is a first school for pupils aged 2–9. Pupils move on to a separate junior or middle school before Year 6, so the school does not enter pupils for the Key Stage 2 SATs and has no KS2 results to publish.

This applies to every first school in England — it does not mean data is missing. Ofsted judgements and school information are shown below.

Getting a place

Offered a place after putting it first

88%

33 first choices, 29 places

First choices per place

1.14

more first choices than places

Applications naming the school

any preference, for 29 places

Applications from another council area

First preferences per place, last five years▼ 0.03

00.511.52

1 per place

0.9320221.1320231.4820241.1720251.142026

Red dashed line = one first choice per place. How to read this

We do not have a checked cut-off distance for St Mary's Catholic First School, Dorchester yet. Dorset does publish allocation figures and we are working through them council by council — we only show a distance once we have found it in the council’s own document.

Application figures: DfE, school level applications and offers (2026 intake).

School profile

Age range: 2–9
Pupils on roll: 174
Gender: Mixed
Religious character: Roman Catholic

Pupil background

% FSM ever-6

9.3%

Typical primary: 21.5%

% EAL

16.1%

Typical primary: 9.6%

Special educational needs

% SEN support

9.8%

Typical primary: 14.3%

% with an EHC plan

1.7%

Typical primary: 3.0%

Attendance

Overall absence

5.0%

Typical primary: 5.3%

Persistently absent

13.5%

Typical primary: 13.3%

Staffing & funding

Pupils per teacher

25.6

Typical primary: 20.7

Spend per pupil

£6,006

Typical primary: £6,960

“Typical” = the median primary school in England. What this means

Nearby primary schools

St Osmund's Church of England Middle School Dorchester · 0.2 mi 51.7 Dorchester Middle School Dorchester · 0.8 mi 37.7 St Mary's Church of England Middle School, Puddletown Dorchester · 4.4 mi 52.5 St Andrew's Church of England Primary School Weymouth · 4.4 mi 39.9 Bincombe Valley Primary School Weymouth · 4.4 mi 45.0 St Nicholas and St Laurence Church of England Primary School Weymouth · 4.8 mi 55.2 Radipole Primary School Weymouth · 5.6 mi 46.0 St John's Church of England Primary School Weymouth · 5.8 mi 36.1

Location

Official sources

Latest Ofsted report reports.ofsted.gov.uk DfE Compare School Performance compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk GIAS school details get-information-schools.service.gov.uk

About St Mary's Catholic First School, Dorchester

St Mary's Catholic First School, Dorchester is a primary school in Dorchester, Dorset, classified by the DfE as a converter academy with a Roman Catholic religious character. Around 174 pupils aged 2 to 9 attend the school.

St Mary's Catholic First School, Dorchester is oversubscribed: about 9 in 10 of the families who made it their first choice were offered a Reception place for September 2026, with 33 first choices for 29 places. Overall pupil absence was 5.0%. There are about 25.6 pupils per teacher. Its intake is relatively advantaged, with around 9% of pupils eligible for free school meals in the last six years versus about 24% nationally. St Mary's Catholic First School, Dorchester does not currently have a recent graded Ofsted judgement on record (often the case for newer or recently converted schools), so it is worth asking when its next inspection is expected. This overview is generated automatically from the latest published DfE performance tables and Ofsted data; figures are rounded, and you can check the originals via the official links above.