St Mary's Catholic High School

At St Mary’s, we believe that every member of our school community should be actively involved in supporting charitable causes, understanding that this commitment lies at the heart of our mission and purpose as a Catholic community.

Guided by the principles of Catholic Social Teaching (CST), we foster an appreciation of the vital role charities play in supporting the less fortunate. This understanding is embedded within our curriculum—particularly through Religious Education and PSHE—as well as in assemblies, daily acts of collective worship, and form time reflections.

Over many years, our school community has supported a wide range of charitable causes, not only through fundraising efforts, but also through direct action and advocacy, living out our faith through service to others.

What is Catholic Social Teaching?

Life and Dignity of the Human Person

All people are sacred, made in the image and likeness of God. People do not lose dignity because of disability, poverty, age, lack of success, or race. This emphasizes people over things, being over having.

Call to Family, Community, and Participation

The human person is both sacred and social. We realize our dignity and rights in relationship with others, in community. “We are one body; when one suffers, we all suffer.” We are called to respect all of God’s gifts of creation, to be good stewards of the earth and each other.

Rights and Responsibilities

People have a fundamental right to life, food, shelter, health care, education and employment. All people have a right to participate in decisions that affect their lives. Corresponding to these rights are duties and responsibilities to respect the rights of others in the wider society and to work for the common good.

Option for the Poor and Vulnerable

The moral test of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable members. The poor have the most urgent moral claim on the conscience of the nation. We are called to look at public policy decisions in terms of how they affect the poor.

The Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers

People have a right to decent and productive work, fair wages, private property and economic initiative. The economy exists to serve people, not the other way around.

Solidarity

We are one human family. Our responsibilities to each other cross national, racial, economic and ideological differences. We are called to work globally for justice.

Care for God’s Creation

The goods of the earth are gifts from God. We have a responsibility to care for these goods as stewards and trustees, not as mere consumers and users.

Charities recently supported by St Mary's Catholic High School

In recent years, pupils and staff at St Mary's have supported numerous charities - local, national and international. As a Catholic school we regular fundraise during Lent and Advent, but our community also raises monies throughout the year for a wide range of causes. This also includes responding to calls for additional support during times of crisis and emergency.

In addition to raising money, our school also supports the work of local food banks throughout the year.

Please note: St Mary's Catholic High School is not responsible for the content of external websites.

Latest News - Charities

This week, members of our school community had the privilege of delivering the donations gathered through our Christmas Charity initiative to The Manna Society — a long‑established Catholic charity supporting those most in need across South London.

On Tuesday, 21^st October, the school came together for our annual cake sale and raised £561.12 for Macmillan Cancer Support. This fun event highlighted some of the wider values of our Catholic school: compassion, community, and service.

Pupils across the school raised money for the Catholic Children’s Society as part of their Lenten commitments to prayer, abstinence, and almsgiving. Through a variety of activities – including raffles, quizzes, and cake sales – pupils in each House have found creative and meaningful ways to support this important charity.

This Advent, we were proud to once again support The Manna Society, a charity that has been serving the homeless community in London Bridge since 1982. Many of those they support sleep outdoors in all kinds of weather, and the day centre is open seven days a week, year-round.

Friday 18^th October, once again saw St Mary’s school community support the annual Macmillan Cancer Support fundraising appeal. Traditionally, this takes the format of a coffee morning with St Mary’s pupils encouraged to supply cakes and biscuits for a cake sale that takes place in the school’s court yard at break and lunch time.

During the week beginning 11^th March, the whole school took part in CAFOD’s Big Lent Walk 2024. As with last year, pupils walked, or ran, laps of the upper playground, and on a couple of wet days did their walk around our large sports hall

This week, pupils from St Mary’s delivered the large quantity of donations that they had collected during Advent to The Manna Society, a charity based at London Bridge that supports the homeless. Pupils in each house collected food and clothing in the weeks before Christmas, all things requested by the charity to support their work.

Thank you to everyone who supported our pupils’ cake sale for Macmillan Cancer Support on Friday, 20^th October. During breaktime and lunchtime on the day, pupils organised and ran cake stalls, with both home-made and shop bought cakes and biscuits. There was great excitement seeing which of our four houses would raise the most money.

We are delighted to report that our school has sent an amazing £1,310 to CAFOD, including money raised by students for The Big Lent Walk 2023. In March, the whole school took part in The Big Lent Walk 2023, walking laps of the upper playground in solidarity with the victims of global poverty, especially those communities most affected by climate change.

This Advent, students and staff donated items in support of Croydon Care4Calais Community Group’s Christmas Appeal in order to offer emergency aid to refugees and asylum seekers in our local area. They help to provide dignity and comfort in an otherwise overwhelming situation. They aim this Christmas to give as many children a ‘box of joy’, and adults a ‘bag of hope’.

We lit up the front of our school on Wednesday, 23^rd November in support of Aid to the Church in Need's Red Wednesday campaign. Red Wednesday is a global campaign highlighting the need to break the silence on the persecution of Christians and all faiths, globally.

The campaign, organised by the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, calls on people to mark the day by wearing red, so we decided to go even further and flood the front of the school in red light, the colour of Christian martyrdom.

Students and staff raised an amazing £1035 for CAFOD’s ‘Walk against Hunger’ and CAFOD’s ‘Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal’ during Lent this year. Our school has a rich tradition of supporting CAFOD over the Lent period going back many years; this year there was special impetus because of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine.

In the last week of term, all Year 8 students took part in CAFOD’s Walk Against Hunger, by walking laps of our upper playground in solidarity with our poorest sisters and brothers around the world. Year 8 students walked 757 kilometres around the upper playground during one RE lesson (5 laps = 1 kilometre)

At Advent, St Mary’s school community, as part our commitment to being of service to those in need, has always collected for the poor and hungry. This year we have been supporting The Manna Society, a charity which helps the homeless in London.

On Tuesday, 30^th November, St Mary’s students and staff raised £193 towards CAFOD's ‘Go Green Day’. We asked students to wear their normal uniform on that day, but to wear one item of bright green clothing as part of their uniform - hats, ties, gloves, t-shirts, scarfs, socks, jumpers, hoodies and more were worn.

Thank you to everyone who supported last week's student lead cake sale for Macmillan Cancer Support. We raised nearly £500, which is a magnificent effort. Students have also learnt about teamwork and leadership as well as economics and business.

This Easter, St Mary’s donated over £1000 to five charities from money collected by students and staff this academic year. Despite the interruption caused by the national lockdowns, St Mary’s school community once again rose to the challenge of providing much needed support to these important local and national charities.

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July 2021 - CAFOD 'Eyes of the World' Campaign

This summer, all Year 7 students took part in an art project, organised by Mrs Goodwin, in support of CAFOD’s ‘Eyes of the World' campaign. Our students worked together to send a message to the world’s leaders, that the ‘Eyes of the World’ are on them when they meet at COP26 in Glasgow in November to address the climate crisis.

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