About Us
St Mary and All Saints is a happy and stimulating place to work and to learn. You will see that we have beautiful, spacious buildings, wide corridors which we can use to display the lovely work our pupils produce, and extensive landscaped grounds which are the envy of schools around us. Our children are happy and motivated to learn, and the school is well resourced and a bright and vibrant learning environment. We have recently given our outside areas a facelift, so that they too reflect the importance we give to the whole environment.
Our School Name
Who was St Mary?
Mary was the mother of Jesus. Our school logo depicts Mary carrying the infant Jesus. One of the original schools on this site until St Mary and All Saints opened in October 2005 was named St Mary’s. We suspect Mary was chosen as the name of our school as she is known for her motherly, nurturing manner and cared for Jesus her son. By reading the bible we know that Mary was a young woman, engaged to be married to Joseph. God told Mary that she would become pregnant through a miracle and have a baby son. In Christianity, Mary is greatly honoured and respected as the mother of God. Many pictures of Mary show her holding a baby or a child like our school logo.
Why are we called St Mary and All Saints?
Our current school was formed in 2005 when two former schools on the same site amalgamated, St Mary’s VA Primary School and Coley Park Primary Schools. The new school was decided to be a voluntary aided church school taking the name of St Mary (one of the former schools) and All Saints (the local parish church). There are several artefacts from St Mary’s situated in our new school building such as this statue of St Mary which is in our library.
The original St Mary’s School was in Hosier Street in the town centre (opposite Reading Minster, where the market is now situated). The wall in the KS1 playground (the wall alongside KS2 group rooms) is an original part of that building that was salvaged when the Hosier Street building was demolished. The original school moved to Coley Park in the 1950s.
The Bishop of Reading at the time, Stephen Cottrell, opened the new school in October 2005.
Our Stained Glass Windows
In our library we have two large circular stained-glass windows. They are beautiful and were designed by the children in 2005.
The windows are colourful and depict the beautiful green countryside to the immediate south of the school where there are wetlands and countryside toward the M4.
The stained glass windows were designed to incorporate ideas by children who were at the school at the time of the amalgamation- the wing down to the library and round the corner was new build at that time. They were briefed to create drawings that connected the school to the Church, the community and the new motto of the time - Learning Together, Playing Together.
