Our Multi-Faith School

St Mary’s is, by its foundation and deed, a Church of England school, but our community is beautifully multi-faith and includes families of no faith. Our Christian foundation gives us a clear set of values from which to serve everyone. It does not place limits around who belongs here. We celebrate the different faiths, traditions and worldviews represented within our school and, where appropriate, help children recognise the shared heritage and connections between the Abrahamic faiths of Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Alongside this, we ensure that children and families who do not hold a religious faith are equally recognised, respected and able to explore the big questions of life, meaning, identity and belonging.

We believe that one of the great purposes of primary education is to develop a lifelong capacity for awe and wonder. You can feel this as you walk through our school. It is in the artwork that fills our walls, the extraordinary three-dimensional whales and fish swimming through our hall and the care taken to make our environment immersive, beautiful and inspiring. We want children to stop, notice, question and marvel. Education should not simply fill children with knowledge. It should open their eyes to a world that is bigger, richer and more extraordinary than they had previously imagined.

Spirituality at St Mary’s is therefore not confined to worship or religious education. It runs through the life of our school. Children encounter it through outdoor learning and connecting with the natural world, through stillness and reflection, through creativity and through our programme of collective worship. Sound and music have an important place too, creating opportunities to listen, reflect, celebrate and experience something beyond the everyday. For some children, these experiences will be understood through faith and a relationship with God. For others, they may be about connection, beauty, humanity, nature or a sense of something greater than themselves. Both have a place here.

Above all, peace lives in our school. In a community of many languages, cultures, faiths and worldviews, we teach children that difference does not have to divide us. We can be curious about one another, learn from one another and recognise the values that connect us. Our ambition is that every child leaves St Mary’s with a strong sense of who they are, a deep respect for those who are different from them and the confidence to encounter the world with curiosity, compassion and wonder.