St Thomas of Canterbury Catholic Primary School in Grays

Grays

Grays is the largest town in the borough and unitary authority of Thurrock in Essex and one of the Thurrock's traditional parishes...

, Essex

Essex

Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...

 is a voluntary aided primary school linked to the local Catholic

Catholic

The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

Church of St Thomas of Canterbury, Grays.

History

St Thomas’ School was formed as the parish Church of St Thomas of Canterbury was being designed and built. In 1885, before the Church building was completed, a temporary school was opened in Argent Street to allow the 60 children enrolled at the school to begin their lessons. Each child paid 2d. a week

On September 3, 1886 St Thomas’ School moved to its more permanent location, housed under the main building of the newly-built Church. At this time the school consisted of two rooms under the Church: a large room, which is used today as the parish hall, and a small room, which became the Catholic Social Club. The playground for the early school is today used as the Church car park.

St Thomas’ Church has been in its current location on Ward Avenue since 1969.

The School Today

The school achieved a Grade 2 (Good) rating in the Ofsted inspection carried out on 28 February 2007. The school runs clubs, which include Netball, Football, Rugby, Dance and Art.

They also run extracurricular clubs like the Challenge Club.