Mount St Mary's Catholic High School, Leeds


Mount Saint Mary's School is a Roman Catholic secondary school in Leeds, England.

History

Mount Saint Mary's School was founded in 1853 by the Sisters Oblates of Mary Immaculate. Father Robert Cooke, OMI, looked to the Sisters Oblates, who sent four sisters to establish a convent and school in the cellar of their convent. Many pupils were girls who worked in local flax mills and factories. By 1858 the sisters had raised enough funds to build a convent next to Mount Saint Mary's Church. More fundraising by the Sisters soon produced the £800 needed for new school buildings that were erected next to the Convent. It became a girls' Secondary Modern in 1946, at the same time as St Michael's College became a Grammar School. In 1978, Mount St Mary's and St Michael's College both became comprehensives.

Admissions

Mount Saint Mary's is a Faith school for ages 11–16 in Richmond Hill. Catholic education after 16 is found at Notre Dame Catholic Sixth Form College. It is just north of the A61, next to the derelict church of Mount St Mary which opened in 1857 and closed in 1989.

St Michael's College

This was a former boys' direct grant grammar school on St John's Road in the Hyde Park area of Leeds, the analogous school to the girls' Notre Dame Collegiate School. It later became a comprehensive school, St Michael's Catholic College. It was a Jesuit college which opened as Leeds Catholic College on 18 September 1905, becoming St Michael's College in 1933. It had the motto "Quis ut deus", a translation of the Hebrew "Mikha'el", meaning God like.

Merger

Mount St Mary's announced a merger with St Michael's College of St John's Road in Hyde Park after a review by the diocese found that there was no longer a need for four catholic secondary schools in Leeds. St Michael's is no longer in operation. The remaining Year 7 pupils who began education at the school in 2005 were transferred to Mount St Mary's after the schools merged the same year. The last year group to move through the site left in 2008.
St George's Crypt, a Leeds homeless charity, used the site temporarily.

Former pupils