St Mary's School Ascot's partnership with St Francis Catholic Primary School.

Partnership activities, formalised under a Memorandum of Understanding, include the free of charge sharing of facilities and real estate - examples include the grounds for a Forest School, the swimming pool for swimming classes, the Rose Theatre for school productions and the athletics track for sports activities and sports days. In addition, St Mary's staff work with teachers from St Francis on activities such as Science Days and Drama days. 

Aims

Our partnership activities aim to improve the educational experience of the pupils of St Francis. This is achieved by the provision of facilities, resources, skills and experience that would not normally be available to this Catholic primary school.   

Background

St Mary's School Ascot has had a close relationship with St Francis for over 100 years - indeed the nuns of St Mary's found the school when in 1892 they kindly agreed to teach 34 local children. The recent Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Chairs of Governors of both schools is merely a formalisation of what has been routine business for many years.

Resources

The partnership between the two schools has both breadth and depth. Resources provided to St Francis include the patch of carefully prepared woodland for their Forest School, access to the 400m athletics track and the 25m swimming pool as well as regular usage of the Rose Theatre.  Academic staff at St Mary's provide their time, skills and expertise for specialist activity days designed to help the Year 6 pupils make the switch to secondary education.  This includes Science and Drama activity days.  

Impact

Feedback on the success or otherwise of the partnership activities is provided to St Mary's during meetings between the headmistress of St Francis and the headmistress of St Mary's.  This forum allows each activity to be reviewed in a frank and transparent manner which then allows adjustments to be made to future plans to ensure the pupils at St Francis gain the maximum benefit from the activities.  

Frequency

The partnership between St Mary's and St Francis is an on-going relationship which will continue to develop and evolve over the years. The Memorandum of Understanding between the two schools will ensure that future generations of pupils at St Francis will be able to benefit from the support provided by St Mary's.