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St Mary's Values, Mission and Ethos

St Mary’s Catholic Primary School, Axminster

Our Values and Ethos

Living, Loving and Learning with God

 We are a working faith community with Christ at the centre. Our shared focus is to ensure that all who are part of our community feel valued and loved as Jesus taught us.

Our website tries to communicate how we work to do this. Our school community lives and breathes it so we expect that it will be recognised by the behaviour and outcomes in every encounter in our school.

We are a work in progress; God’s own work of art.

Mission Statement:

We are proud to be a school in the Plymouth CAST Trust

We share the Trust mission statement

“to be a community of outstanding schools in which our pupils flourish

in safe, happy and stimulating environments and leave us with the knowledge and skills, personal qualities and aspirations, to make the world a better place, inspired by the Gospel.”

Vision Statement:

At St Mary's, through teaching and example, we seek to develop in our children an understanding of and capacity for justice, forgiveness, love, and compassion. We will nurture our whole school community to enable us to strive for personal excellence in every one of our gifts and prepare our children for their futures. 

 The School’s Aims are:

  • To ensure each child achieves their personal potential, academically as well as in sport, music and the arts
  • To encourage our children to develop their understanding of and relationship with God.
  • To promote a safe, stimulating and rewarding environment in which our children can develop educationally, emotionally and spiritually.
  • To have everybody who attends St Mary’s or works here, seen as part of our school family.
  • To recognise and reward each child’s successes.
  • To provide a rich and stimulating curriculum, with an emphasis on the basic skills of numeracy and literacy. 
  • To encourage our children to show kindness, respect, and consideration towards others.
  • To ensure a strong relationship with our parents, our Catholic parish and our local community.

 Everybody who attends St Mary’s or works here is seen as part of our school family. The teachers know all the children in the school as individuals and we recognise and reward each child’s successes. Every Friday we have a special assembly to celebrate our children’s weekly achievements both inside and outside school. Parents are encouraged to join us at this assembly and at many other occasions throughout the year, such as our music evenings, school plays, theme day assemblies and on holy days when we celebrate Mass. 

We want every child to achieve their best and work hard to ensure that each individual achieves their full potential, both academically and in other areas. Our aim is to provide a well-rounded, broad based and exciting education. Lessons, including the specialist teaching of music and sport, a variety of after-school clubs and visits, provide a wide range of fun and challenging opportunities for learning. Our committed and talented staff have high expectations and place a big emphasis on educational achievement and behaviour.

Governors work in strong co-operation with the teaching staff, and are currently working to introduce new governors who can both support and challenge the work of the school in driving school improvement so that every child can achieve their full potential.

The school has worked hard to make the most of the expansive grounds. The PTFA are pro active and have worked closely with staff and governors to provide an outdoor space that supports and enhances quality classroom learning and play.

We very much value the contribution of parents; seeing them as the first educators of the children in our school. At all times parents are welcome to talk to class teachers and senior leaders about their child's learning experience at St Mary's. Formal parents’ meetings are organised every term to keep all parents informed about the progress and targets set for their child and also provide an opportunity for parents to meet and talk to governors. 

We strive to live, love and learn with God by creating a strong sense of shared success and support. 

Please look beyond these statements by exploring our website and visiting our school.