Our Vision & Values

Our School Mission

At St Mary’s School, we aim to provide every child with the best possible education and the securest of environments. We work to provide all pupils with a solid academic footing, which ensures that every child reaches their full potential, especially in the key areas of literacy, numeracy, science, and ICT. Our school also aims to help children develop as people, secure in knowing who they are and what they want from life.

Our teaching philosophy is simple: we aim to combine the best of tried-and-tested methodology with new and innovative ways of teaching.

St Mary’s Vision Tree

Inspiring a love of learning

British Values

At St Mary’s School, we actively promote British values through our school vision, ethos, agreed rules, curriculum, and teaching. As such, we promote tolerance of, and respect for, people of all faiths (or those with no faith), cultures, and lifestyles.

We prepare children and young people positively for life in modern Britain by supporting them through our words, actions, and influence, not just within school, but also within the wider community.

Promoting Our Values

The government defines British values as:

• Democracy.
• Rule of law.
• Individual liberty.
• Mutual respect.
• Tolerance of those of different faiths.

At St Mary’s School, we value the diverse ethnic backgrounds of all pupils and families and undertake a variety of events and lessons to celebrate these. We have found this approach to be enriching for all parties, as it teaches tolerance and respect for the differences in our community and the wider world. Underpinning all of this is a range of curriculum topics that have strong links to the British Empire. We actively challenge children, staff, and parents expressing opinions contrary to fundamental British values, including ‘extremist’ views.

As part of The White Horse Federation, we passionately believe that by working together, children have a higher quality of education, and that as colleagues, we will also benefit from and reap the rewards of a values-based organisation where no one is left behind.