St Mary’s is a Voluntary Aided school. Whilst this means the school has certain autonomy (for example, in setting our admissions policy), it also means that the school is not entirely funded by the government or local authorities. At least 10% of the capital funding of the school has to be found by the governing body.

What this really means is that certain parts of the fabric of the school are funded by voluntary contributions from parents and carers.

Fabric of the school includes buildings, for example, the fitting of double glazed windows in Reception and Year 1 classrooms, new toilets and a complete heating system for KS1. Ten percent from the Trust find also went towards the new administration and entrance block at the front of the school and a boiler for KS2. The school is currently looking at refurbishing the KS2 building with new drainage, toilets and re-modelling of the internal rooms to create a better learning environment for the children. 

Voluntary aided also means that large purchases also require some degree of funding by parents. For example, parental contributions recently enabled the purchase of 48 new laptops.

The School Trust fund was set up to enable parents to contribute to the school in a regular, anonymous and tax efficient way. The trust fund is administered by trustees who ensure that any parental contributions are only used for 'the maintenance of buildings and for the advancement of the education of the pupils of the school.' 

Parents are not required to contribute to the Trust fund but if you feel that you could contribute then please contact the school for more details. By contributing to the Trust fund the school improvements essential to developing its buildings and learning environment will enable the governors to plan for the future.