St. Mary's C E Primary School

Welcome to St. Mary's C.E. Primary School. The years spent in Primary school are amongst the most important in every child's education and are as much the responsibility of parents as they are of teachers. We realise the important decision you are making in choosing the right school for your child.

We believe that close co-operation between home and school, structured and exciting curriculum enables children to achieve high standards in all of their endeavours. Our aim is to encourage care and courtesy, self-confidence and independence in all our pupils, and to make the serious business of learning a challenge and a delight.

We’re proud to announce we’ve become an eCadet school. The eCadets is an award winning programme which trains, empowers and supports a team of pupils to keep their friends safe online.

The programme is run by a team of former police officers and there is also the opportunity for every other child at the school to benefit and get involved through Bubble – the 100% safe social platform which is run and moderated by eCadets HQ and enables children to safely engage with children the same year group age as themselves in complete safety.

Destination Reader is an approach to teaching reading in KS2. The approach involves daily sessions incorporating whole class modelling prior to the children applying these skills through partner work and independent reading. Children deepen their understanding of the texts they read through the systematic use of a series of strategies and language stems. The approach encompasses the key principles of effective reading provision and fully meets the requirements of the National Curriculum by creating deep understanding of texts, developing oracy around reading and increasing children’s breadth of reading. Destination Reader also helps to build a culture of reading for pleasure and purpose.

Church End is situated just east of the centre of Brent and is the heart of the original parish of Willesden. St.Mary’s church Church End, once also known as Crouch (Cross) End, grew up around the church, which was located on the edge of marshland, an equal distance from the three main settlements in the area.

The school was founded to educate the children of the parish and to bring them up in the Christian Faith. Happily, we are now housed in modern buildings, immediately behind the Church, but our reason for being here is still the same: To give the children of the neighbourhood a sound basic education within the context of the Christian Faith. We are concerned for the whole child, mentally, physically and spiritually. Our aim is to give the children who come here firm foundations upon which to build their lives.

Above all, we are a Church School, and believe that the Christian Faith is the foundation for a complete and fulfilled life and it is this foundation, which we aim to give our children for their future lives.

We stress the importance of basic subjects for a sound educational foundation. We recognise that all children are different and we endeavour to meet the needs of each child, encouraging each one to strive for the highest he or she can reach. The value of the individual is stressed and our children are taught to respect other people and to adopt a caring attitude to all.

St. Mary's is the oldest school in Brent, dating back to 1777 when a local philanthropist gave £200 towards building a Charity School in Willesden. In 1809 the Sunday school was founded and this was extended to a day school in 1818 - long before the Education Act made education available for all children.

The famous shrine of Our Lady of Willesden - "The Black Virgin of Willesden" - to which miraculous powers were ascribed is also the schools logo. St Mary’s Church adjacent to the School is also home to the ancient shrine of Our Lady of Willesden, and to the Holy Water of Willesden which flows underneath the church and is freely available to be taken away. Some experts state that the name Willesden, or as it was called "Wilsdon", or "Wellesden" means the spring or well at the foot of the hill. The church is kept open all day for everyone to worship or to light candles.