In 2023, we reviewed our school vision and values to ensure that they met the needs of our unique community whilst  truly enabling our children and adults to flourish. The previous values of Love, Hope and Community are still very much underpinning the ethos of our school. Since we adopted those three values, however, the school and community have evolved and so we worked tirelessly to ensure our vision and values were updated to reflect the changing landscapes. 

The children, parents, clergy, governors, senior leaders and staff team spent the Summer Term considering the unique needs and challenges of our school and the most suitable values which would not only drive our ambitions for our children and their families but also reflect the ethos and working practices of the St Mary’s 'family'. We then spent the Autumn Term collating the countless suggestions and contributions, allowing us to officially launch our newly form vision and values in November 2023.

From all of our consultation and research, it was abundantly clear that everybody's vision for our people is for them all to reach their full potential in life. Added to this, our school has always been an incredibly nurturing place in which God's love is spread widely throughout our school and beyond, and this is something which we were determined to keep at the heart of our school vision. As a result of all of our work, our new St Mary's vision strapline is as follows: 

Be the best that you can be.

Shine God’s love for all to see.

To enable our new vision to be lived out by our entire community, we compiled a set of six values which we will aim to live by at all times. These are as follows:

·  Friendship  ·   Joy  ·  Service  ·  Hope  ·  Compassion  ·  Courage  ·

Our new vision and values are rooted in Matthew 5:14-16:   

14 You are the light that gives light to the world. A city that is built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15  People do not hide a light under a bowl. They put the light on a lampstand and the light shines for all the people in the house. 16 In the same way, you should be a light for other people. Live so that they will see the good things you do. Live so that they will praise your Father in heaven. 

This is further supported by St Catherine of Sienna:

"Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire."

Now that our vision and values have been formally adopted, we are ensuring that they underpin everything we do here at St Mary's and they truly are guiding the way for the entire St Mary's 'family'.