Headteacher
Mrs Patricia Hawley BA (Hons) PGCE
Welcome to our website, I am sure you will enjoy viewing this snapshot of life here at Our Lady’s Convent School. To really appreciate all that our School is, please visit us and take the opportunity to talk to our staff and students. You are assured of a warm welcome.
Here at OLCS we believe in and apply the philosophy of our founder, Blessed Antonio Rosmini that a ‘pupil must be allowed to grow and develop as an integrated human person’.
This is our mission and to fulfil it we deliver a curriculum that constantly challenges and extends academically, furthermore we take education beyond the classroom so that our pupils experience life in all its richness, so that learning is real and living, based on the needs of today’s society but rooted in values that are concrete and good for all time.
We are very proud of the academic excellence achieved by our students, many of whom attain top grades across a wide range of subjects. Through positive encouragement, ongoing assessment and keeping group sizes small we ensure that each pupil’s needs are met and value is added at every stage of their education. Every department in the school strives to make the learning active, multi sensory and based on real experiences. Most importantly, every student in our School is treated as an individual and education is a happy and positive experience.
Academic results are very important: they bring a sense of achievement and satisfaction and they are a passport into further education and a rewarding career. However, there is more to education. There are all those areas in which we are not formally examined, but yet make us who we are. There are those talents and skills we develop for enjoyment. The experiences that make us a well rounded person. The ways in which we give back to society.
We live in a fast moving and competitive society and it is vital that we prepare our students so that they can contribute effectively and confidently to that society. Our School is a place where people can grow and blossom, hold onto their dreams and be supported when their dreams do not materialise instantly.
Our Lady’s Convent School is a “People Place”. As defined so beautifully in this poem by William Crocker.
If this is not a place where tears are understood,
Where do I go to cry?
If this is not a place where my spirits can take wing,
Where do I go to fly?
If this is not a place where my questions can be asked,
Where do I go to seek?
If this is not a place where my feelings are heard,
Where do I go to speak?
If this is not a place where you’ll accept me as I am,
Where can I go to be?
If this is not a place where I can try to learn and grow,
Where can I just be me?