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Welcome to Sixth Form at Loreto Grammar School

Welcome to the Sixth Form at Loreto Grammar School. The philosophy which underpins our Sixth Form is a very simple one: chiefly, we are not an examination machine. Of course examinations are important and our results underline our success in achieving the best for our students in this respect. But so much more important is that our girls emerge from Sixth Form as fundamentally decent human beings, who are aware of the world around them and who are aware of what they can contribute to that world to make it a better place. Our young are the hope of the world and our future depends upon them upholding the values of respect, compassion, justice, decency that will shape that future positively. Exam results – important. Human qualities inestimable!

Our Sixth Form was judged “outstanding” in all 7 categories both in our 2005 and our 2008 Ofsted Inspections. Our success is very much underpinned by a belief of Mary Ward, foundress of the IBVM order:

“No half measures, no half women”.

Mary Ward was no timid recluse, but a 16th century feminist, well ahead of her time. She believed passionately in education for women and the success of her endeavours, reflected today in some 120 Loreto schools around the globe, was in no small measure due to her whole-hearted commitment to her cause. She urged her followers to be wholehearted in whatever they did, to approach their endeavours with enthusiasm and to be to be single-minded in pursuit of their endeavours. This was and is a message very well worth giving, and so we urge our Sixth Formers to indeed believe in “no half measures, no half women”.

Rooted in the context of the Catholic community and taking Mary Ward as our role-model, we believe passionately in service to others, both within school, in the local community and, via our sister Loreto schools, in the global community. Our girls gain much from this, both in terms of personal experience and fulfilment, but it is ultimately what they give, not what they gain that is the goal. In the words of Lewis Carroll: “One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth doing is what we do for others”.


Our Curriculum provision, our pastoral support system, our extra-curricular opportunities and our careers advice provision and our service to others are outlined elsewhere on this website. What cannot be outlined is that indefinable sense of true community – and a very happy community –that pervades Loreto Sixth Form. We are a very varied community: we have a wide catchment area and we draw from a diversity of backgrounds both social and ethnic. We have existed as a school for 100 years. Our students keep in touch and come back again and again. The overwhelming response of students past and present is that their time in the Sixth Form was a happy one: and that is surely the most important thing.

Rhoda Anderton
Head of Sixth Form

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