Mission Statement
Priory School is a thriving, co-educational independent school founded upon a rich Catholic heritage which welcomes those from all faiths and none. In partnership with parents and guardians we provide a nurturing, family-based ethos, alongside high standards of teaching and learning, enabling all pupils to achieve their potential.
We embrace diversity and interfaith understanding alongside awareness of environmental and global issues, in response to the needs of our time.
Aims
- To promote a safe, family orientated community based upon the values of Cornelia Connelly the founder of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, and derived from our rich Catholic Heritage
- To achieve academic success through high standards of teaching and learning
- To actively promote and celebrate intercultural multi-faith understanding, inclusivity and genuine care and empathy for all community members
- To respond to the wants of the age through an understanding of environmental and global issues
- To encourage physical fitness and healthy lifestyles including effective use of the outdoor environment
- To applaud determination, tenacity, resilience, commitment and effort
- To encourage personal initiative, self-discipline, and responsibility
- To encourage students to act and make judgements in a fair-minded, balanced and sensitive way
- To value each student for their unique talents, abilities and qualities assisting them to achieve their potential
- To work collaboratively with parents and guardians ensuring effective standards of communication
Our Founder
“Actions not Words”
Cornelia was the founder of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus who led a life of overwhelming fortitude coupled with spiritual diligence in the face of immense personal tragedy. Despite the hardships and challenges she encountered, she found peace and emerged resolute with her place in the world, confident in her role as a mother and educator and defiant in her resolve to serve God.
The first Holy Child School in Birmingham was established in 1881 by Mother Angelica Croft on the Hagley Road near to the Oratory church at a time when the elderly Cardinal Newman was still in residence. Due to the poverty and squalor that the local people lived in and the nuns also – the nuns withdrew in 1885. It was not until August 1933 the Society returned to set up another school at St Gabriel’s in Harborne and later moved to the current site at Priory School. It was in 1936 that the Sister’s moved in with thirty six children and a kitten called Mayo.
Charity
Generosity must be the beginning and ending of our life
Cornelia Connelly
Priory School is committed to supporting a range of charitable causes through our many fundraising initiatives and volunteering programmes. We regularly support the following charities as well as raising money for our Sister Schools across the World in underprivileged areas.
Global Network
Priory School is proud to be a member of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus network of schools worldwide. Holy Child schools worldwide are rooted in the educational tradition of the Society, sharing in its mission to help others believe that God lives and acts in them and in our world.
Cornelia Connelly, founder of the Society, developed an educational system based on trust and reverence for the dignity of every human being. She wanted Holy Child educators to carry this spirit to students of diverse backgrounds as they sought to respond to the wants of the age in which they lived.
Vision Statement
We are a family orientated school devoted to the promotion and celebration of our multicultural community in order to inspire and foster a lifelong love of learning on a truly equal footing. Our heritage is our foundation from which we educate our students to become responsible global citizens.
We strive to embrace the talents of all students recognising the power of opportunity and offering a broad range of extracurricular enrichment activities, alongside a chance to contribute to the community we serve through charitable missions. We understand the importance of nature to develop healthy, and positive lifestyles with an outdoor curriculum.
Taught in small class sizes, our curriculum is diverse and rigorous fostering curiosity, challenge and independent learning enabling us to target the needs of the individual. We invest in the development of our teaching staff, and those at early career and entry level, understanding our responsibility to ensure excellence for the future.
We are proud of our heritage and the international connections which enables us to fully encompass the values of our global family, striving to make a difference on environmental and humanitarian issues.
We promote the importance of mental health within our exemplary pastoral model where an onsite school counsellor and mental health ambassadors support our students, developing strategies to manage the modern world effectively.
Overall, our ‘high aspirations and high expectations’ encourage determination and resilience equipping our students with empathy, flexibility, and a strong moral compass for life.