Marist Characteristics

Saint Thomas More is a Parish School in the Marist Tradition

Marist-badge.jpgA Marist School is a centre of learning, of life, and of evangelising. As a school, it leads children to learn to know, to be competent, to live together, and most especially, to grow as persons. As a Catholic school, it is a community setting in which faith, hope and love are lived and communicated, and in which students are progressively initiated into their life-long challenge of harmonising faith, culture and life. (Article 126 from "In the Footsteps of Marcellin Champagnat")

The Catholic school, far more than any other, must be a community whose aim is the transmission of values for living. Its work is seen as promoting a faith-relationship with Christ in whom all values find fulfilment. But faith is principally assimilated through contact with people whose daily life bears witness to it. Christian faith, in fact, is born and grown inside a community. (Article 53 The Catholic School Document - "This is my commandment: love one another, as I have loved you". John 15:12)

Policy Statement

Central to education in the Catholic school is the area of relationships. We all need to develop healthy relationships with God, with ourselves, with others, and with the world community.

Values

At St Thomas More, we value:

  • God's unconditional love for all people
  • Christian witness
  • Appreciation of the dignity of self and others.

Principles

  • At St Thomas More we strive to create an environment that nurtures each person's relationship with God.
  • It's (the Catholic school) work is seen as promoting a faith relationship with Christ in whom all values find fulfilment. (The Catholic School Document Article 53)
  • At St Thomas More we provide support structures to allow each person to develop a healthy relationship with him/herself.
  • Equity should be the hallmark of our schools; no-one should benefit from preference or privilege because of social standing or exterior qualities; each pupil, rich or poor, should be treated according to ability, virtue, and personal worth. (St Marcellin)
  • At St Thomas More we provide opportunities to engage in positive relationships with others.
  • The school must be a community whose values are communicated through the interpersonal and sincere relationships of its members and through both individual and co-operative adherence to the outlook on life that permeates the school. (The Catholic School Document Article 32)
  • At St Thomas More we seek to make each person aware of his/her responsibilities as a custodian of the world community.
  • The Catholic school should teach its pupils to discern in the voice of the universe the Creator whom it reveals and, in the conquests of science, to know God and man better. (The Catholic Schools Documents Article 46)