St. Mary's Roman Catholic School is a coeducational

secondary school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' secondary education, lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) ...

in the village of

Lugwardine Lugwardine is a village and civil parish in Herefordshire, England, to the east of Hereford. It lies on the north-east bank of the River Lugg, which gives the village its name. The population of the civil parish taken at the 2011 Census was 1 ...

Herefordshire Herefordshire () is a county in the West Midlands of England, governed by Herefordshire Council. It is bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Monmouthshire ...

, England which takes children of ages 11 to 16, ranked by

Ofsted The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) is a Non-ministerial government department, non-ministerial department of Government of the United Kingdom, His Majesty's government, reporting to Parliament of the U ...

as Herefordshire's best state school based on GCSE results from the last 10 years. It is also a centre of excellence for English and the arts, having won the national student debating championship many times in recent years. The current headteacher is Mr. Wetson. In 2011 the school celebrated its 150th Anniversary. Celebrations started on the week commencing 27 June, culminating in a major outdoor Mass attended by its three Roman Catholic feeder schools in Herefordshire (St Joseph's RC Primary School in Ross-on-Wye, Our Lady's Catholic Primary School and St Francis Xavier's RC Primary School in Hereford) on 2 July with additional public events. In 2021 the school was at the centre of controversy surrounding the teaching of sex and relationship education. On 20 April 2021, the school was inspected by Ofsted because Her Majesty's Chief Inspector "was concerned about pupils’ personal development, and the effectiveness of leadership and management (including governance) at the school". The inspection was conducted due to "concerns that the school’s current RSE programme encourages misogynistic and discriminatory attitudes". The formal inspection report letter of 14 May 2021 highlighted further priorities for improvement.https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/50164024

References

Secondary schools in Herefordshire Catholic secondary schools in the Archdiocese of Cardiff Educational institutions established in 1861 1861 establishments in England Voluntary aided schools in England {{Herefordshire-school-stub