The old school entrance
St Mary’s is a Voluntary Aided co-educational day school. It was originally founded in 1824 in York Street, next to the parish church. It cost £5000 to build the school, of which a Mr. Tillard gave the huge sum of £4000. His gift is remembered still on the memorial stone in the front of the present school.

St Mary’s served a wide area until other local schools were built. Children were educated free, but later charged one penny, and then fourpence, a week until free state education came in 1873. An Infants schoolroom was added in 1888 but destroyed in an air raid in 1944. After the war the school reorganised from its All Age Range status to being a Primary School. In 1969 it moved to a new building in Enford Street, and in 2000 a Nursery Class was added.

St Mary's Today
Our school has a long tradition of providing a good education and we aim to provide a full curriculum to all of our children. There are thriving after-school clubs offering dance, Spanish, football, music and basketball to name a few. Most of our classes are full and the school is generally over-subscribed.

The new school entrance
The children wear uniform and staff are addressed by title and surname. Our behaviour system operates through a reward system, is supported by the spiritual and moral ethos of the school and has the active support of our parents. We are a church school with a strong Christian tradition, though a significant percentage of our children are Muslim. Other faith communities are also represented.


The school’s most recent (February 2009) OFSTED inspection judged St Mary's as a good school overall, with some areas judged as  outstanding. Our Inspection report from the London Diocesan Board for Schools judged us as an Outstanding Church School.


The building is mostly single storey, very pleasant to work in and in good condition. In Autumn 2001 a new Nursery class was opened which brought the capacity of the school to 252 full-time and 28 part-time places. At the same time as the Nursery was built we also converted a central courtyard into an ICT suite and library.

The local community we serve is ethnically and socially diverse. More than 30 languages were spoken in school at the last count. After English the most common language spoken is Arabic.

The school has an active ‘Friends’ association that includes parents and staff. The Friends have worked hard in recent years to both fundraise for our projects and to encourage all parents to become involved in the school. The local business community is also very supportive – our Christmas Fair Santa came from the local fishing shop! Employees from some local firms also come in to hear children read.

The relationship with our Church, St Mary's Bryanston Square, is very positive and we are always striving to make it even better.

Our own teaching staff is dedicated and hard-working. The school staffing has also been remarkably stable over the past couple of years, given the overall situation in London schools. As well as our class teachers we have a three full time and two part time support teachers (including a teacher of Reading Recovery). In addition to this we have enjoyed the benefits of a part time Learning Mentor for the last ten years. There are five qualified, and one unqualified, teaching assistants in school (Nursery, Reception, Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2) as well as  a number of Learning Support Assistants supporting children with statements of Special Educational Needs.

The administrative staff consists of two part-time administrative officers, one part-time financial support and a one part-time finance officer. We have a full-time schoolkeeper who lives on site. There are also 8 midday meals supervisors.