St Mary's School Cambridge

Boardingly Worldly ranking

The Worldly ranking measures a school's external standing from publicly sourced signals — academic results, press coverage, alumni and awards — scored out of 100. Signal coverage: 75%.

About this school

Mary Ward, the seventeenth-century Englishwoman who insisted girls could learn Latin as well as any boy and was imprisoned by the Church for saying so, is not a name most families will recognise when they walk through the doors of this Cambridge school. They should learn it. Ward founded her institute in 1609 on the premise that women's education was worth risking one's liberty for, and St Mary's, which traces its working life to a log book begun in 1901, has spent well over a century trading on that inheritance. It is a founding story with more moral heft than the average statement of values. But a founding story is a claim, not a proof, and a wise family treats it as the beginning of the interview rather than the end. The right response to "we descend from Mary Ward" is: show me. What service is expected of a girl here, and is it chosen or box-ticked? What do the pupils themselves say the ethos costs them in daily behaviour? A school that can answer those without reaching for a brochure is one whose heritage is load-bearing rather than ornamental.

What St Mary's demonstrably has is a staff who like working there, and that is worth something. The Staffroom View pillar sits at 99 out of 100, built on staff sentiment scored at 95, which is high enough to notice. Contented adults tend to stay, and continuity of adults is a quiet good for any girl who is a long way from home. I would caution against carrying that figure further than it can bear. A happy staffroom tells you teachers are content; it does not, on its own, tell you the boarding house is emotionally robust, that evenings and weekends have any life in them, or that a pastoral worry travels up the chain quickly enough to matter. The score may lump day teachers in with house staff, veterans with new joiners. So the sentiment is a reason to look closely, not a substitute for looking. The questions that actually decide a boarder's experience are unanswered by any dashboard: how many full boarders are there in Years 9 to 13, broken down by year group; how many of them stay on site at the weekend rather than leaving to guardians; what is staff turnover specifically among boarding staff; and can the school put you in touch with two or three current international parents who will speak candidly across a time zone. Press on the roll of 600 spanning ages 3 to 18, because the senior boarding community may be a good deal smaller than that headline implies — ask for the figures — and its size is the single fact that most shapes whether a house knows your daughter or merely supervises her.

The genuinely forward-looking strength, at 93, rests on real investment in computing, engineering and robotics. That counts for more at a girls' school than it would elsewhere, because these remain fields where girls are nudged away early and often, and a school that takes them seriously is doing something useful for its pupils and for a world short of women in them. This is the Mary Ward instinct in the present tense: educate women properly and let the consequences travel.

Academically the school is solid rather than commanding. Brains Trust reads 63, with three-quarters of A-level grades at A*-B and a DfE average around a B+. Respectable work, the mark of a school that stretches capable girls without pretending each is bound for the colleges two miles up the road. A family choosing on results alone can find higher numbers elsewhere. What it cannot easily find is value added, so ask what a girl who arrives at a given level tends to leave achieving, which tells you more than a raw grade profile ever will.

Now the part the school would rather I softened. The overall Worldly score is 44 out of 100, with Bragging Rights at 29 and In the Public Eye at 32. Read plainly, on our Worldly measure St Mary's reads as well known in and around Cambridge and among Catholic and Mary Ward families, and less recognised beyond. It does not carry a famous crest into Singapore or New York, nor, so far as our data shows, a dense international alumni network. For an international family, worldliness is rarely decoration. It usually means a globally mixed peer group, university counselling that understands overseas destinations, and social capital that outlasts the school gates. On several of those measures our data is thin, and I will not dress that up as a philosophical preference — for the wrong family it may be a real cost.

Which brings me to the sentence this profile exists to deliver. Shortlist St Mary's if you want a girls' school in Cambridge without needing a household name attached, a smaller and settled community, serious encouragement in STEM, and a values-led tradition you find you can respect on inspection. Look elsewhere, and do so without regret, if you are buying UK boarding partly for network, signalling and mobility, if your daughter needs a large full-boarding cohort with weekends that hum, if you want top-tier academic momentum or a dense international alumni web, or if you want a religiously neutral environment. On that last point especially, a non-Catholic family owes itself hard clarity: how does the Catholic identity show up in an ordinary week, how is religious practice handled for a girl of another faith or none, and how the school ensures she is culturally included rather than peripheral. The school's answer to that question, more than any score, will tell you whether the Mary Ward line about educating every girl still means what it says.

The data here points somewhere worthwhile for the right family and somewhere frustrating for the wrong one. Get the full-boarding numbers, the weekend occupancy, the leaver destinations for the last three years, and the honest account of faith in daily life, and you will know which family you are. The decision, as ever, is yours.

Sources: School website · Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI) report · DfE Compare School Performance · Boardingly Worldly Ranking (our scorecard + underlying signals)

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Academics

Exam results

Not yet verified against an approved source. Contact school.

Life & activities

Boarding & pastoral

Boarding type: Full, Weekly, Flexi

Dining: School lunches are charged separately for day students. Junior School lunches are compulsory (£265 per term). Senior School and Sixth Form students may choose whether to have school lunches (£6.00 per day). Food is prepared on the premises. Boarding fees include all meals.

Pastoral care: Girls in Senior School are divided into tutor groups and see their form tutor twice a day. Tutors meet regularly with each student to monitor progress. The school uses the 'Girls on Board' pastoral programme and has a Chaplaincy. A strong House system is used, with girls arranged into vertically grouped families. The school emphasises happiness and wellbeing throughout all year groups.

Latest inspection

Common questions

How much are the fees at St Mary's School Cambridge?

At St Mary's School Cambridge, full boarding is £18,755 per term, weekly boarding is £15,800 per term and day fees are £8,815 per term. These are indicative figures from public data — always confirm the current year's fees directly with the school.

Where is St Mary's School Cambridge?

St Mary's School Cambridge is in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom (CB2 1LY).

Is St Mary's School Cambridge a boys', girls' or co-educational school?

St Mary's School Cambridge is a girls school.

What ages does St Mary's School Cambridge take?

St Mary's School Cambridge educates pupils aged 3-18.

Does St Mary's School Cambridge offer boarding?

Yes — St Mary's School Cambridge offers full, weekly, flexi boarding.

How many pupils are there at St Mary's School Cambridge?

St Mary's School Cambridge has approximately 600 pupils.