Our Vision and Charism
Our school vision reflects our Dominican founders and our Mercy connections and is as follows:
Our school vision was developed in conjunction with the students, staff and whānau of St Mary’s School. Our school was founded in 1933 by the Dominican order of nuns under the name St Dominic’s and then in the 1960s was taken over by the Mercy order of nuns and the school was renamed St Mary’s.
Our school vision is a living vision which is a foundation for the way our school operates. Every member of the school community learns the vision and develops over their time in our school, a strong understanding of how it is to enact the vision in our day-to-day lives. Our vision statement is displayed around the school and used by the children to report back to their parents about their progress at school.
Empowering each other
Like St Dominic, we empower each other to share the truth of the Gospel in our everyday lives.
We Strive to Learn
All members of our community work towards developing skills and attitudes that help them to be the best learners they can be.
We Strengthen our Faith
We are encouraged to develop our faith by gaining knowledge about different aspects of our religion, spending time with God in prayer and at liturgies, as well as learning how to be an active part of the church community in Aotearoa.
We Seek to Serve
As a part of the Catholic church we are all required to look for ways in which we can serve others, whether it be in the classroom, on the playground or in the wider community. Catholic social teaching is an important element of our school’s kaupapa. We want our staff and learners to look outside of our school and identify ways we can help within our communities. Learning contexts are built around this aspect of our vision to ensure that it is a deeply embedded part of who we are as Catholics.
The Gospel values embodied in our school charism are:
Unity | Kotahitanga
Respect | Manaakitanga
Compassion | Atawhaitanga
Truth | Pono
What is a charism?
Charisms are genuine gifts of the Holy Spirit for the holiness of the entire Body of Christ and the perfection of charity. (Catechism of the Catholic Church #800). As baptised members of the Church, the Holy Spirit can work through the fiat of each one of us for the good of all of us so that as one body Christ lives in us and works through us as we journey to the Father. In other words, our school charism is the gift of four Gospel values that we try to live by at all times, so that we and others can journey towards eternal life with God our Father.
Once again, every member of our community needs to know and understand our charism and what our values look like in action. The charism underpins all we do at school, it is woven into daily life and talked about with the children regularly.
At the beginning of each year the children and teachers unpack it and identify what it might look like, sound like and feel like. Each year level goes a little deeper so as to gain a better understanding. We hope it becomes a part of our students’ lives and that they take it with them when they leave our school.
Our School charism has been developed through our association with the Sisters of Mercy and the Dominican nuns who were the first to teach in our school. The charism of Respect – Manaakitanga, Unity – Kotahitanga and Compassion – Atawhaitanga are a part of the Mercy values and truth is a part of the Dominican values.
