St Mary's School

My daughter transferred to St Marys Cambridge in Year 9 after experiencing bullying at a comprehensive school and struggling with learning due to her dyslexia. She had slipped through the net and her mental health was in a state. She hadn't learned anything in 2 years and we were concerned that she would not return to her happy, confident, fun and expressive self.

St Marys welcomed her with open arms and nurtured her. She received the education and pastoral care that she needed. She felt supported and celebrated for her abilities and achievements and she has progressed beyond our expectations. She is confident and happy again. Able to be herself.

That said, being a teenager is hard. Teenagers are complicated and can be so cruel. This isn't new and it happens in every school. St Marys are aware and do intervene. They are clear about what is acceptable behaviour and what is not. But it is down to the parents to provide them their children with the tools they need to survive. A lot of the negative behaviour is learnt at home or is accepted as social norm here is lies the problem Mothers should maybe teach their girls not to be mean girls but celebrate sisterhood and what good that can bring. St. Marys does try to do this.

As a school I am happy with the focus on wellbeing and development.

The Design Technology, Art and photography department is excellent and Dance GCSE course has been brilliant.

Having been to the school myself in the 90's, I can honestly say that being a St. Marys girl has served me well.

I recommend.

As a former student (after being asked to leave) I was treated with extreme prejudice. They are big on mental health and caring for each 'individual student' when in reality they sweep people aside when they become even a slight problem -do not put your children in this school; your money will be better spent somewhere else

People struggled with self harm and the school doesn’t do anything.
And the boarding house doesn’t let you go out anymore.
As a student my self I’ve never ever experienced teacher as bad as this school.
You don’t even learn anything, when you struggle on something they get mad at you saying you didn’t pay attention during class but really they don’t teacher anything

teaching is horrible and students have to put in 3x the effort to learn anything, there is also a secondary school branch to this school - where it has strict GCSE limitations, teachers who can’t teach and a pastoral department full of people who didn’t believe someone when they opened up about being sexually assaulted. both schools are also incredibly homophobic and transphobic, giving students who are a part of the lgbt+ community less attention, privileges, and telling parents that their child is friends with the ‘gay group’ and should be warned about dangerous behaviour. it is unacceptable. there was a case where they emailed parents of a group of children saying that their children should not have any contact with eachother, be put to at home learning and their phones taken permanently and searched. all because 2 of the children in the group struggled with self harm, and one did not identify as a female. if you care about your child - do not send them to this school. the teachers know their subjects but do not know how to teach them - resulting in a 30% less A* average in GCSE’s than in an average village college. As a student at St Marys Senior school, Cambridge, i have had to fought to be valued the same as my classmates - and although there have been a couple of lovely teachers, they were working with me on their own accord. not under advisory of the so called ‘pastoral care department’.