Headteacher's Welcome
Welcome to St Mary's website! We hope that you find what you are looking for. Our vision is : 'Aspiring, Nurturing, Flourishing; together shining a light'. We believe that in order to flourish in all areas of life our children need to be not only aspirational but nurtured too. In our most recent survey, children have said that they feel safe, there is always someone to speak to, challenging work, they learn lots of new things, have lots of friends and most importantly, good food! We welcome all children; those with a Christian faith, other faith and those with no faith. Our most recent Ofsted Report (2019) states that the 'dedicated headteacher and middle leaders, alongside governors, are determined to provide the best possible education for all pupils'. At St. Mary’s, we provide 'an exciting, aspirational curriculum (which) develops pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development well. They are well prepared for the next stage in their education and for life in modern Britain'. (Ofsted 2019)
Our welcoming and inclusive school is founded on Christian values which give the children, staff and parents a clear sense of identity and belonging. We have strong links with St Mary's Church in Rickmansworth. While the Church recruits their new Vicar, the Vicar or Curate from neighbouring St Peter's Church delivers weekly Collective Worship and we attend St Mary's Church at the beginning and end of term for a Church Service. I am hugely grateful to St Peter's for this support.
We develop our children's cultural capital through our purpose-made library so that children can share a love of reading and literature; residential and day trips, a wide range of visitors, experienced sports coaches who provide not only PE lessons but a range of clubs (football, basketball, multi-sports) and also our wrap around care. We work in collaboration with 'SoundBox' who provide extra curricular music lessons- drumming, guitar, piano. We have a specialist music teacher who also runs a choir and recorder club in addition to the children's music lessons; multi-sports, tennis, netball. For those who are not musical or sporty we have gardening and SMAD (St Mary's Amateur Dramatics which is run by the older children themselves.)
We are fortunate to be supported (and challenged!) by a fully involved governing board at St. Mary’s who work tirelessly to ensure that our school gives the best possible education to the children and families it serves. As a one form entry school, we are a close knit community supported by a fantastic parent body. We have half termly meetings with our Class Parent Reps who are the liaison between parents and school. The PTA (Friends of St Mary's) organise fundraising events to purchase equipment to enhance the education of all children, recent acquisitions include two classroom smartboards.
One question we are often asked is where do our children move on to for their secondary phase of education? The majority of our children move to St Clement Danes and Rickmansworth School. Other schools include Watford Grammar, Dr Challoners, St Joan of Arc, Royal Masonic, The Reach and Croxley Danes.
Your views are important to the school and we welcome these in order to continually improve. I look forward to meeting you in the very near future, and thank you for taking the time to visit our website. If you would like to come in to look around the school, then please contact Mrs Palmer on 01923 776529.