Our school was founded by the Dominican Sisters of St. Catharine of Siena of King William’s Town, South Africa in 1948.
Our mission statement predicates on our Dominican values and Christian ethos:
Knowing that we are loved by God,
‘Learning the best that has been thought and said’
and Living a virtuous life.
‘Knowing that we are loved by God’
Every pupil will know that we are created in God’s image and understand that despite us being sinners, His love for us is unconditional. Our pupils will understand that, ‘God loves us because He Himself is love’ (Pope Francis). They will learn that the nature of love is that it gives itself. God’s love is seen in the way we treat one another: the members of the school and wider community. Love is the root of our high expectations for all pupils and of our uncompromising insistence that they adhere to the routines and rules that make St. Martin’s a safe and nurturing environment. This love is strengthened through prayer and grounded in service.
‘Learning the best that has been thought and said’
The words contemplare et contemplata aliis tradere – to contemplate and to hand on the fruits of contemplation to others, lie at the heart of the Dominican mission. Equally important is Veritas, for God is the source of truth and we must guide our pupils to live by the spirit of truth He sent.
The fruits of contemplation and study that we hand to our pupils must be nourishing. It is their entitlement to learn ‘the best which has been thought and said in the world’ (Arnold). To teach the most significant ideas, discoveries and developments of our civilisation and to engender in our pupils an understanding of our rich philosophical, literary, artistic, spiritual and scientific heritage, is to channel ‘a stream of fresh and free thought’ (Arnold) into our world.
‘Living a virtuous life’
It is our responsibility to become better human beings, not only by becoming more knowledgeable and exercising intellectual virtue, but through practising the moral virtues that will help us to grow and flourish. Whilst teaching cultivates intellectual virtue, moral virtue is educed as a result of habit.
We will model moral virtue in our school community, place it at the centre of everything we say and do, and guide our students along the same path. The statement, ‘We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is a habit’, paraphrases Aristotle’s words that we will exemplify: ‘As it is not one swallow or a fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy.’
At Saint Martin’s, in order for all pupils to achieve academic excellence, we deliver a knowledge-rich curriculum where teachers are the experts whose role it is to convey their knowledge and expertise to pupils. We believe that all pupils are entitled to learn about ‘The best which has been thought and said’ (Matthew Arnold). Our plans are inspired by some remarkable schools that have already embarked upon this project, the rationale for which is outlined here by Joe Kirby in his educational blog, Pragmatic Reform.
We have developed a Knowledge-rich curriculum, designed to develop memory and a student’s ability to recall information. Intelligence is malleable, in other words, pupils who put in more effort, who practise, who learn and memorise more ideas and knowledge are able to develop greater expertise and thereby become more intelligent than those who do not. Individual facts are of little use, however, if you acquire more factual knowledge, you are able to build a mosaic of information that is a prerequisite for deep understanding. In essence, the more you know, the more you are able to learn and understand. Knowledge is like Velcro, the more you have, the more that sticks.
‘Higher-order thinking is knowledge-based: The almost universal feature of reliable higher-order thinking about any subject or problem is the possession of a broad, well-integrated base of background knowledge relevant to the subject’. E D Hirsch
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