The Marist Schools

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The Marist Schools
Image:Marist crest logo.jpg
Motto Sub Mariae Nomine - In Mary's Name
Established July 1947 (opened October 1947)
Type Independent school
Headmaster Karl McCloskey (Senior School)

Jenny Peachey (Preparatory School)
Founder Marist Sisters
Students c.600 (combined)
Location Sunninghill, Berkshire, England
Campus 60 acre rural campus
Website http://www.themaristschools.com

The Marist Schools are independent Catholic day schools for girls aged 3-18. They are Catholic schools but welcome all Christians and other faiths who are in sympathy with the schools' ethos. Girls enter the Nursery from age 3 and the Preparatory School from age 4 to 11 years. Once girls reach 11 they often join the Senior School until age 18 years.

The schools are within a 60-acre site in the village of Sunninghill, Berkshire. The site includes several buildings for the senior school, a main building for the preparatory school, an indoor swimming pool, a music block, a large playing field and most recently a drama block.

[edit] History of the schools

The establishment of a boarding and day school in the Berkshire village of Sunninghill by the Marist Sisters was a direct result of the German air offensive against London in the early 1940’s. On the night of the 21st September 1940 a German canister-bomb, dropped in Queen’s Road, Richmond, Surrey did irreparable damage to the Marist Convent and School.

Though the property damage was extensive and the emotional trauma very real as the Sisters saw years of dedication and hard work seemingly reduced to rubble, there were no casualties among the sisters and a group of students sheltering in the basement on that night of havoc.

Not daunted, a house was rented at 6 Fife Road, East Sheen, and on this site the dislodged senior school was accommodated, while the least damaged area of the Queen’s Road building was repaired and used for the juniors. With rugged tenacity the Sisters continued their apostolate on a new, if restricted site. Their plans for an extension however, were shattered when Barnes County Council, considering the existence of a school in a residential area to be in contravention of the Town Planning Scheme, withdrew permission for use of the site as a school.

True to the symbolism of Religious as ‘pilgrim people’, there was but one course of action. The Marists were once more on the move! After much house hunting the Sisters discovered the Frognal Estate in Sunninghill up for sale in 1947 (pictured below).

Negotiations were opened, purchase concluded, and it was to this corner of England’s ‘green and pleasant’ land that a Community of Marist Sisters, displaced by war, moved in 1947. Frognal House, a redbrick mansion, is situated in 55 acres of beautifully landscaped parkland.

Since its erection in 1876 at the request of a Miss Polly Fairman, an artist, the property had passed through a succession of owners, including Sir Walter Palmer of Biscuit fame; another resident was Dr Trotter, a retired Malayan Civil Servant, a keen botanist responsible for the selective planting of trees and shrubs in the Frognal grounds. Immediately prior to its purchase by the Marist Sisters, Frognal had been rented by the American High Command and was a base for General Ike Eisenhower and his War Council.

In the summer of 1947 the Sisters moved much of their effects from Richmond and Sheen, prepared the house for a Community of 12 and a small group of boarders from the Richmond days. A local builder erected a block of huts (pictured below) adjacent to the main building comprising 5 classrooms.


28th July 1947 was the historic day on which the Sisters moved into Frognal, now newly-named The Rosary. The school opened in October 1947 with 48 weekly boarders and 8 students who made the journey daily from Richmond. By degrees local students enrolled, the number of boarders increased, and as the school continued to grow plan were made in 1956 for an extension to the building.

The present main senior school building was opened on the 7th July 1962 (pictured below), by that date the enrolment was 242 senior and 176 junior students. Side by side with the erection of new buildings and the maintenance of the existing fabric, academic work progressed over 27 years.

In 1969 work commenced on a preparatory school building and on the 14th April 1970 the official opening of the new Preparatory School building (pictured below) took place.


The 1970’s could be termed the building years when further classrooms were added, the Cecilia wing (pictured below) comprising 2 Staff Rooms, an exam centre and a PE section were completed and a spacious swimming pool was erected in the grounds.


In 1990 the school library was transferred from its elegant home in the Convent area to a more spacious room in the main school building more accessible to students and staff.

By 1991 the original 1947 huts, showing their age, were demolished, and an extensive block comprising science and art rooms (pictured below) replaced them.


As far back as the 1950s the school had been inspected and recognised by the DFES. At one stage there were about 100 students boarding at the school, but early in the 1990’s they were phased out and the new school now caters exclusively for day students.

Since that historic day of 1947, 196 Marist Sisters have given dedicated service in various capacities at Marist Sunninghill. To them and to the many conscientious teachers who have worked here over the years, the Marist owes its distinctive position as a very successful educational venture begun in the dark days of World War II.

[edit] Notable Pupils & Alumni