St Mary's Catholic High School

From high academic standards to excellent behaviour; aspirational goals and strong traditional Catholic ethos; we offer an education that treats our students as individuals, teaches them respect for themselves and each other, and encourages them to emerge into the wider world as well-educated, well-rounded, ambitious and confident young adults.

Furthermore, 'it takes a village to raise a child'. As such we continually strive to find ways to communicate and build on our strong and valued relationships with our families and wider community.We believe that every member of staff is on a learning journey and we provide a wide variety of personalised development programmes to ensure every teacher is able to deliver their best at all times.We look forward to getting to know you and for you to become a valued part of the St Mary’s school community.

The School aims to promote mutual respect and understanding of each other and the environment, to develop the full potential of the individual, and to provide equal opportunities for all.

In pursuance of these goals, we offer every member of the school community opportunity to study the impact of the Gospel message of love through all the subjects in the curriculum and to reflect on these through a genuine experience of worship and prayer.

In order to maintain a high standard of education, we provide an atmosphere where good communication can take place, nurturing a pastoral dimension that offers appropriate support to all within the school community.

We foster links with the wider community in order that the Gospel message can be lived practically with all people caring for others and making a positive contribution to the advancement of humanity.

At St Mary’s we promote ‘British Values’ in all aspects of school life in order to ensure that all members of our community respect one another and embrace religious, cultural, racial and sexual diversity. We recognise that it is our responsibility to keep our students safe and to prepare them for life in modern multi-cultural Britain and globally. We empower our community to be informed and resilient against all forms of extremist behaviour that seeks to undermine our ‘British Values’.

As part of our holistic approach to educating our students, we offer a well-rounded curriculum with extra opportunities to engage at a deeper level with the subject. Students studying GCSE Home Economics recently attended a food preparation course with a celebrated chef, and the girls’ PE class was invited to meet the women’s England rugby team at Streatham and Croydon rugby club.

For a number of years we have been extremely fortunate to have a close working relationship with the Old Vic theatre with pupils taking part in Director’s Workshops. In addition the Mousetrap Theatre Trust provides us with funded tickets for stage productions and pupils are taken to see recordings of live TV shows to gain an understanding of TV production.

We offer a triple BTech award and GCSE in Sports Science and are fortunate in having excellent sports facilities both on site and in the surrounding area. Our students visit the local gym for fitness classes, we have dry court facilities, the largest sports hall in Croydon and two playgrounds.

As a multi-cultural school, we empower students with the ability to understand their place in a culturally diverse society. We have over 55 different languages spoken in the school and students actively and independently learn from each other on a daily basis. Students are free to share their faith and beliefs as well as the school allow students to celebrate their different religious believes by authorising absences for Diwali, Eid and Ramadan etc.