Inspired by the vision of Catherine McAuley, Mercy education is committed to holistic development and to the achievement of the full potential of each student, particularly those who are disadvantaged or marginalized.

 

It is a process informed and influenced by the teaching and examples of Jesus Christ and is conducted in an atmosphere of care, respect and joy. Mercy education is committed to ongoing whole-school development in collaboration and partnership with the Board of management, staff, parents and the wider community.

 

Within this website we try to explain some of the principles and practices we uphold.

 

A summary of our aims and ideals follows:

• We uphold a Catholic Ethos leading to a deeper faith in Jesus Christ.
• We are committed to an excellence in education within the Mercy Ethos
• We aim to provide a positive happy environment in which our learners are able to achieve their potential.
• We try to ensure that each member of our school community is valued for their talents.
• We are determined to allow children to grow and develop in a school which is free of prejudice.

We are registered with the Gauteng Education Department as an Independent school. We operate as a registered non-profit organization

 

“There is nothing more important than our children’s education. As parents/guardians we want to give them the best start in life. Their school experience should be a happy one, not founded on learning alone,but on relationships formed and values shared. We will help our children see and experience that together with others, we can make a difference”.

Catherine McAuley founded the religious congregation of the Sisters of Mercy in 1831.
Her strong faith in God, nutured by reflection on the Gospels, her deep and personal awareness of the needs of poor people in Dublin in the nineteenth century and her loyalty to the Catholic Church, led her to give her life in service to others.
In her educational endeavors Catherine sought:

 

• To bring freedom and better quality of life to those who were poor.
• To regenerate Irish society by preparing young people for responsible adult living.
• To lead all in her care to a deeper faith in Jesus Christ.

The focus of her attention was those who were poor, uneducated and without opportunity, approach was collaborative and she sought to influence those at the centre of wealth and power to share in her efforts.
She connected the rich to the poor, the educated and skilled to the uninstructed, the influential to those perceived as of no consequence and the powerful to the weak.

In the area of Primary Education, she was the first of the contemporary founders of religious congregations to seek affiliation to the New National School system and is credited with having adapted creatively and constructively what was then an unsatisfactory governmental system of education.
In terms of secondary or intermediate education, Catherine’s non-residential pension school for girls anticipated by more than forty years, the intermediate act of 1878.

Her concern for the spiritual and material welfare of women was expressed in the setting up of the House of Mercy, where woman were trained to work which enabled them to earn their living. Through her policy of self help and the teaching of crafts and skills, she pioneered technical or vocational education half a century before such education was officially recognized.

 

Her close liaison with the family, through visitation of homes, pointed to the need for family education and community-based learning and can be seen as the forerunner of homes/schools/community partnerships.

Catherine McAuley was an inspired and creative innovator regarding teacher education. In Baggot Street she initiated a training programme for female teachers.

 

This predated, by two, years the setting up by the state of similar teacher-training programme for the male teachers in Marlborough Street.Her style of education was permeated by religious faith nurtured in an atmosphere of love. Her greatest influence as a teacher came from the recognition that she lived by the values she imparted.