St Mary’s CE Primary School

St Mary’s Lewisham Church of England Primary School stands at 329 Lewisham High Street, directly opposite the church. It is a voluntary aided school in the Diocese of Southwark, and it is our school — not in the sense that we run it, but in the sense that the two have grown up together and are in and out of each other’s buildings every week.

The school’s own website is the place for everything practical — the curriculum, term dates, the headteacher’s welcome and how to apply. What follows is the part we can speak to.

Ofsted, April 2026

• AchievementStrong standard
• Attendance and behaviourStrong standard
• Curriculum and teachingStrong standard
• Early yearsStrong standard
• InclusionStrong standard
• Leadership and governanceStrong standard
• Personal development and wellbeingStrong standard

Ofsted no longer gives a school a single overall grade. Each area is judged against a five-point scale — exceptional, strong, expected, needs attention, urgent improvement — so strong standard is the second of the five and above what is expected. St Mary’s has it in all seven.

What makes it worth more than the grades is the intake it was achieved with. Nearly 43% of the children are eligible for free school meals, against a national figure of 26%; a fifth are on SEN support; and a great many arrive partway through the year, some new to the country and at an early stage of speaking English. Against that, the inspectors found that disadvantaged pupils achieve above-average outcomes in national assessments in reading, writing and mathematics and that pupils leave very well prepared for their next steps.

Pupils enjoy coming to this school because they feel safe, cared for, and part of a warm, inclusive community.

The report also describes a school that gets its children out into the world: Year 6 have spoken at City Hall about housing, there is collaborative work with a school in Ghana, and the enrichment on offer runs from choir and coding to sailing, museum visits and university workshops — with children who might face a financial barrier supported to take part.

Read the full report on the school’s website — quotations from the inspection report, which is Crown copyright and published under the Open Government Licence.

The church and the school

The Vicar leads worship in school regularly, and the children come across to the church often — for the festivals, for services of their own, and to use a building most of them can see from the playground. Clergy are in school as a matter of routine rather than as visitors on special occasions.

It runs the other way too. A team from the congregation goes into school every week to listen to children read, and Year 2 help look after the Therapeutic Garden in the churchyard, which is used by the whole neighbourhood and by the hospital next door.

Church schools are inspected on their Christian character separately from Ofsted, under what is called SIAMS. At its last such inspection, in June 2019, St Mary’s was graded excellent overall, excellent for the impact of collective worship, and excellent for religious education. The inspector wrote that the school has very deep links with its parish church, whose clergy are regular visitors.

That is now some years old, and the next SIAMS inspection is expected this autumn. This page will be updated when it reports.

All faiths, and none

If you want a Christian primary education for your child, this is a good school to choose, and we would say so without hesitation. The faith is not decoration: it is in the worship, in the RE, in the values the children can recite, and in the fact that the clergy are part of the furniture.

And the school is for children of all faiths and none. At its last church inspection just over half the children came from Christian backgrounds, and the rest did not. Children of other faiths and of no faith are not tolerated there, they are wanted there, and the school is a School of Sanctuary — which is a commitment it has made about welcoming families seeking refuge, and not a phrase anybody uses lightly.

Applying for a place

Apply through Lewisham’s ordinary primary admissions round. The criteria and the dates are on the school’s admissions pages, and the school office will arrange a look round if you ring 020 8690 2613. Seeing it is worth more than any website, ours included.

Church places

Because it is a Church of England school, some places are set aside for churchgoing families. To qualify you need to have been attending at least once a month for at least six months, and to be contributing to the life of the parish. There is a form for this, alongside the council’s application, and the school sets the criteria rather than the church.

It is not only for people who come to St Mary’s. The form can be completed by other churches and other denominations, so if you worship elsewhere in Lewisham — or somewhere that is not Church of England at all — that counts. Ask your own minister.

What the clergy do is confirm what is true — that you have been coming, and for how long. That is the whole of it: we have no discretion, we cannot rank an application or press a case, and we cannot sign for attendance that has not happened. Nobody is helped by a form that says otherwise, least of all the family whose place is challenged later.

And if you are reading this six months out and doing the arithmetic — come anyway. You would not be the first and nobody will think the worse of you for it. But come because you might stay: there is no register at the door, and the six months is there to mean something.

Elsewhere on this site

There is more about children and young people at church on the children and young people page. And if you are interested in how a parish came to be involved in schooling at all, two vicars of St Mary’s started something in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that still educates several thousand Lewisham children — the schools and the Leathersellers.