Our School's History

When the Sisters of St Mary of Namur arrived here from Belgium in 1896, their intention was to start a school for Bishop's Stortford's Catholic community. That same year they acquired Windhill Lodge at the top of Windhill, renamed it St Mary's Convent and opened their school in the same building. There were just nine pupils at the start. The original building still stands but has since undergone a great deal of alteration. Helped by funding from the Catholic Church, the much larger school house that stands alongside the old convent was built in the early 1900s. This opened as a fee-paying school.

But not every Catholic family in Bishop's Stortford could afford to pay for their children's education, so in 1909 a mixed school for elementary pupils began on the site of St Mary's. Named St Joseph's, it first accommodated pupils in two classrooms in what is now the music block, but by 1914 the school had grown so rapidly that a staff of three were teaching 57 children.

During the First World War, soldiers were billeted in St Mary's at night and many child evacuees from London were taught here during World War II.

When built in 1960, the new school had just three classrooms, making it necessary for many pupils still to be taught at St Mary's School. A further three classrooms were built in time for St Joseph's official opening in 1966, but even they proved insufficient for Bishop's Stortford's rapidly growing population. With finances already stretched to the limit, a fund was set up into which parents contributed at least one penny per week, eventually raising enough money to build the extra classrooms needed.

In recent years, the school has gone through another period of intense change when funding was sought (and eventually granted) for a brand-new school building.  In 2019, just before the world was hit by the COVID pandemic, building started on the current school.  Throughout the COVID period, building continued, and the staff and 120 pupils (those whose parents were ‘essential workers) moved in during the second COVID lockdown in January 2021.  The remaining children returned in March.  The school was officially opened by Cardinal Vincent Nicholls in July 2022 and currently accommodates over 400 children.

(local history information reproduced from www.stortfordhistory.co.uk with the kind permission of Paul Ailey the site's author)