Communication and Events

At St Mary’s we pride ourselves on excellent communication with parents.

Point of contact

For any queries or concerns, in the first instance, you should speak to the Form Tutor who will direct you to the correct member of staff. For pastoral issues it will be Form Tutor, then Phase Lead or Assistant Head (Pastoral). For academic issues it will be the subject teacher, then subject lead, Faculty Head or Assistant Head (Academic). They can be contacted via the St Mary’s school app.

Reports and Parents’ Evenings

Staff at St Mary’s are committed to keeping parents informed of their daughters’ academic progress. The school provides a Parents’ Evening, an Interim report and full report where each member of staff who teaches a student writes a report on their progress.

Tutor and Parent Evenings (Pastoral Evenings) for Years 7 and 8 take place in the Autumn Term giving parents the opportunity to meet their daughter’s Tutor to discuss how she is settling in.

Subject (Academic) Parents’ Evening for Year 7 will take place in March. This is when subject teachers will be available by appointment, for parents to discuss their daughter’s progress in each area of the curriculum.

PTA

St Mary’s has an active Parent Teacher Association, which organises at least one social or fundraising event for the whole school each term.

Membership of the PTA is automatic, and parents are kept informed via the newsletter and by letter, of the various PTA events.

Parents who would like to help organise PTA events are encouraged to join the PTA committee – the Senior School Office staff can arrange contact with the current PTA Chair. The committee meets on one evening each half term to plan events.

School trips

Activities are organised each term for every year group and are designed to inspire the girls, or to support and extend curriculum studies.

We try to ensure that all girls take part in at least one theatre and gallery trip during their time at the school.

Key events

We enjoy welcoming friends and family members into school on a regular basis for events. These include our Carol Service, Fashion Show, Sports Day, PTA events such as the Summer Fete, and our annual Prize Giving celebrations.

Details of events are communicated via the St Mary’s school app.

Email communications

Parents can contact teachers directly by messaging via the St Mary’s school app by typing the surname of the member of staff in the search box.

School App

St Mary’s has a school app through which parents are sent communications such as calendar dates, notices, school trip messages and news stories. Parents are able to contact relevant staff directly through the messaging system on the app.

Website

The school website is a great source of information on the school. It also includes school policies and the latest news.

The Parents’ Portal

The Parents’ Portal contains useful information such as school day timings, key dates, menus, uniform guide and online shop, curriculum, news, galleries and other useful information. This information can also be accessed via the St Mary’s app.

Social Media

You can follow us on Twitter(@stmaryscolch), Facebook (stmarysseniorschoolcolchester) and Instagram (@StMarysColchester)