The School Record

Published admissions and inspection figures for schools in England, from the DfE, Ofsted and local authorities.

Notre Dame RC School

URN 140737 · Secondary · Academy converter · Plymouth

Looseleigh Lane, Plymouth, PL6 5HN

Figures current as of 4 September 2026, the day we last checked a source behind this page.

Ofsted category of concern: Special measures

At its inspection on 25 February 2026 (Ofsted report card (current framework)), this school was placed in the category special measures.

Ofsted judged the school to be failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education, and not to have the capacity to make the necessary improvements without help.

This is about that one inspection. Schools do come out of these categories. This page does not tell you where the school stands today. Check that with Ofsted.

How many families applied

Preferences expressed and offers made at Year 7, as published by the Department for Education. These describe demand. They do not indicate whether any particular child would be offered a place.

In the 2025 intake, 105 families named Notre Dame RC School as their first preference, and the school made 135 offers.

That is 0.78 first preferences per place offered, which places it above 24% of schools admitting at Year 7 in England that year.

More first preferences per place than 24% of comparable schools position among schools in England admitting at Year 7, 2025 intake

Little change. Across the 5 most recent years held, first preferences per place averaged 0.88 in 2021–2022 and 0.81 in 2024–2025.

Applications and offers at Year 7, 11 intake years
Intake 1st preferences All preferences Offers made 1st prefs per place
2025 105 221 135 0.78
2024 105 228 124 0.85
2023 126 269 140 0.90
2022 120 258 132 0.91
2021 118 318 139 0.85
2020 117 247 139 0.84
2019 117 245 137 0.85
2018 85 194 119 0.71
2017 101 231 125 0.81
2016 109 240 127 0.86
2015 114 240 131 0.87

“Offers made” counts the offers the school made. It is not the number of places the school had, so please do not read it as one.

Source: Department for Education: school-level applications and offers, checked 4 September 2026. All sources.

Ofsted

Ofsted changed its inspection framework: the current one publishes several graded areas and no single overall grade, while the previous one published an overall effectiveness grade. Each inspection below states which framework produced it.

Ofsted inspections from 2025 to 202620252026

Ofsted report card (current framework), 25 February 2026

Category of concern: Special measures

Safeguarding: Not met

Inclusion: Needs attention

Curriculum and teaching: Needs attention

Achievement: Needs attention

Attendance and behaviour: Needs attention

Personal development and wellbeing: Needs attention

Sixth form / post-16: Needs attention

Leadership and governance: Urgent improvement

The current framework does not award an overall grade.

Ofsted's report for this school

Ofsted ungraded inspection, 22 January 2025

Some aspects not as strong

Ofsted's report for this school

Source: Ofsted: state-funded school inspections management information, checked 4 September 2026. All sources.

Exam results

Published by the Department for Education for the whole year group. Figures for smaller cohorts are withheld by DfE to protect pupil privacy and appear here as a dash, not a zero.

Key stage 4 (GCSE)
YearAttainment 8Progress 8 Grade 4+ English & mathsEBacc grade 4+
2024/25 43.30 - 56.6% 19.7%
2023/24 41.70 -0.27
likely between -0.52 and -0.03
55.2% 17.2%
2022/23 40.90 -0.31
likely between -0.56 and -0.06
54.1% 11.3%

Progress 8 compares pupils here with pupils nationally who had similar results at the end of primary school; 0 is average. It is an estimate, and DfE publishes a range it is likely to fall within. Where that range spans zero, the school cannot be said to be above or below average.

Teachers staying and leaving

These come from the School Workforce Census, which follows each teacher into the next year. The numbers count full-time jobs, so a teacher who works half the week counts as half. They are not a count of people.

Census yearTeachers (FTE) Still there a year later Moved to another state school Left state schools Left in total
2024/25 51.8 47.8 0.0 4.0 7.7%
2023/24 55.0 46.4 3.0 5.5 15.5%
2022/23 51.3 48.2 1.0 2.1 6.0%
2021/22 51.4 38.6 8.2 4.6 24.9%
2020/21 49.2 42.0 3.0 4.2 14.6%
2019/20 47.4 43.7 1.7 2.0 7.8%

This is turnover among teachers. It says nothing about the headteacher or the senior leadership team: DfE publishes leadership retention separately and we do not hold it by school.

Catchment area

Nobody publishes a catchment area map for this school that we can read. That does not mean an address is outside its area. It means we hold no map, so we cannot tell you either way.

Where it is

The 6 nearest secondary schools we hold figures for, by straight-line distance from Notre Dame RC School.

Nearby and related

Where these figures come from

This page was made on 9 September 2026. "Retrieved" means the day we downloaded the data. It is not the day the data was written, so the figures can be about an earlier year. How we compare schools.