Our History
Six Dominican Sisters, led by Sister Kinsella, arrived in Cape Town in 1863 at the request of the then Bishop Thomas Grimley, to establish a school for Catholic children. This was the beginning of the Dominican apostolate of education in South Africa.
They were given the land attached to the Bishop’s house, which is now the presbytery. Two schools were started: St. Mary’s Primary School for paying parents and a mission school next door (St. Brigid’s). A few years later another school was opened (Dominican Grimley School for the Deaf). This school grew and flourished and later became a primary and high school. Dominican School for the Deaf has since moved to Hout Bay.
About 10 years after the school opened, the Marist Brothers arrived and started a school in Hatfield Street.
Boys and girls attended St. Brigid’s Primary School, which was a state-aided school. The boys left at the end of Grade Three and went to Marist Primary. The girls stayed on at St. Brigid’s and went up to Grade Seven.
St. Mary’s High School was an exclusive private school for girls up to matric, which catered for many girls of immigrant parents: Portuguese, Italian, German, etc.
The Dominican schools went against the government and opened to all races in the late 1970s.
St. Mary’s High School closed in the early eighties and St. Brigid’s became St. Mary’s Primary. St. Mary’s Primary School became a co-educational state-aided primary school serving the needs of the wider community and catering for all, thus upholding the Catholic ethos.
With the S.A. Schools Act of 1995, St. Mary’s Primary was classified as a Public School on Private Property. St. Mary’s maintains its special Catholic character despite now being a state school under the Western Cape Education Department.
The school has a fully functional Governing Body, which was elected in June 2000.
Mission Statement
We of St. Mary’s commit ourselves to upholding the values of love, respect and reconciliation, thereby creating a prayerful and Catholic atmosphere and developing the school community and the whole individual.
We believe that through acceptance, understanding and forgiveness, spiritual growth and healing can take place.
We endeavour to nurture self-discipline and self-esteem, thus helping the children to achieve a level of maturity which will enable them to take up their rightful place in society.
We strive to create an awareness of the needs and feelings of others, so that we may all experience life and nature as being wonderfully created by God.
Dominican Vision Statement
Dominican schools aim to provide forward-looking education of the highest quality, based on a tradition that goes back over seven hundred years of commitment to education.
Our schools seek to care for the whole person in order to develop in young people:
- a love for learning;
- an enthusiasm for truth;
- a love for others;
- respect for the culture and religious values of all;
- a willingness to serve in a spirit of healing and reconciliation,
flowing from an appreciation of the Word of God and a deep commitment to Christ.
