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St Joseph'sCatholic Primary & Nursery School

Our School History

 "Go where there is no church and build one there"-words written in 1888 by Reverend Mother Feltz, the Superior General of the Congregation of La Retraite.

When the local press reported that the Sisters were about to move into The Rookery, in Oxford Street, Burnham-on-Sea, it stated, "they further intend to have a young ladies' boarding School and hope before long to open an elementary day School." The elementary day School was called St. Joseph's and opened in 1891.

In 1890 the Axebridge Union, writing on behalf of the Board of Education to inquire what steps the School authorities could take to prove its efficiency, were invited to come and carry out an inspection. The report was so satisfactory that in 1902 St. Joseph's Roman Catholic School was placed on the grant list as a Voluntary Aided School.

It's centenary was celebrated in 1991 with the opening of a design and technology room.

During the 1990's the school further expanded and in 1995 an official Nursery class was opened for children agaed 3-4 years. In 1996 the school opened a new classroom to cater for a total roll of 224 children plus 40 part-time nursery children. Also in 1996 the Trusteeship of St.Joseph's was written over from the Congregation of La Retraite to the Clifton Diocese.

In 1997 a grant was obtained from the Department of Education to renew the staff toilets and create a special needs room. In 1999 permission was given by the Department of Education and Employment to build a new classroom and enlarge the Hall. The building programme was completed in 2000.

During 2001 a successful bid was made to enlarge the Nursery Classroom. A grant in 2003 was obtained to provide disabled access to the school and also enlarge the administration area.
Building work took place in 2005 to enlarge two classrooms in Block B. A partition was placed to divide the two classrooms.

Since 2003 many areas have been refurbished to include an Information Communication Technology suite, an outside timberland trail and a specialist music room for individual music tuition.

In 2007 embarked on becoming eco-friendly. In 2009 new energy efficient condensing boilers were installed and and in 2010 SU solar panels were installed on the south-facing roof. Additional panels were added in 2011 to give 40 in total.

In 2011 the school had automatic security gates fitted to the main carpark and pedestrian entrance. They are controlled by a keypad by staff and from the school office for visitors.
In 2012 the entrance gates at the bottom of the lane were also converted to keypad entry.

In 2012 we completed maintenance and insulation of the flat roof over the main building and had new matting put down on the timberland trail along with some additional pieces of play equipment.
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