Mission Statement
Priory School is a thriving Independent Catholic school which welcomes those of all faiths and none.
We love, live and learn joyfully as children of God.
In partnership with parents or guardians, we provide a caring community with high standards of teaching and learning, enabling all pupils to achieve success.
Our Foundress
“Actions not Words”
Cornelia was the founder of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus who led a life of overwhelming fortitude coupled with spiritual diligence in the face of immense personal tragedy. Despite the hardships and challenges she encountered, she found peace and emerged resolute with her place in the world, confident in her role as a mother and educator and defiant in her resolve to serve God.
The first Holy Child School in Birmingham was established in 1881 by Mother Angelica Croft on the Hagley Road near to the Oratory church at a time when the elderly Cardinal Newman was still in residence. Due to the poverty and squalor that the local people lived in and the nuns also – the nuns withdrew in 1885. It was not until August 1933 the Society returned to set up another school at St Gabriel’s in Harborne and later moved to the current site at Priory School. It was in 1936 that the Sister’s moved in with thirty six children and a kitten called Mayo.
Charity
Generosity must be the beginning and ending of our life
Cornelia Connelly
Priory School is committed to supporting a range of charitable causes through our many fundraising initiatives and volunteering programmes. We regularly support the following charities as well as raising money for our Sister Schools across the World in underprivileged areas.
Global Network
Priory School is proud to be a member of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus network of schools worldwide. Holy Child schools worldwide are rooted in the educational tradition of the Society, sharing in its mission to help others believe that God lives and acts in them and in our world.
Cornelia Connelly, founder of the Society, developed an educational system based on trust and reverence for the dignity of every human being. She wanted Holy Child educators to carry this spirit to students of diverse backgrounds as they sought to respond to the wants of the age in which they lived.
School Prayer – Let Us Love One Another
Let us love one another and pray; Let us love one another and be faithful; Let us love one another and be humble, be filled with the charity of God; Let us love one another with God, in God, and for God; And we shall thus be one with Him for all eternity.
Amen