Research St. Mary's Catholic School private Schools in Richmond, Virginia

“My children transferred to this school from a very 'prestigious' school in the Richmond area; I have found this school to be MUCH more demanding and overall much stronger academically. The overall personality of the school is extremely positive and my children, while their academic performance may not place them at the top of the class (their other school basically placed all the children at the top), have a noticeably increased level of confidence. There are not as many resources as other schools, and there is much more drillwork and an extreme amount of homework - I have found this to be helpful not so much in the academic sense but in the responsibility/ accountability realm - my children have to be responsible for their performance and relative consequences and they have learned more from this than from a school where everything appeared to be 'perfect'. I highly recommend the school”

“My kids have attended the school for a few years, and we have been very disappointed. The quality of the teachers varies widely--we have had both very good (demanding yet nurturing) and very poor (inexperienced, poor communicators , disorganized, unable to maintain class discipline, etc). Homework for 6-10 year olds can be 1-2 hours per night. All of my kids perform well but I worry that they spend virtually all of their time memorizing facts, not on higher order learning. The school does not share information including school-wide or grade-wide standardized test results on a timely basis so the parents do not know how the school performs overall. It's probably a decent school if your child needs a lot of structure, repetition, and basic drills. But a more creative or imaginative child would probably be bored and frustrated with the amount of rote memorization and busywork, and would do better elsewhere.”

“Demanding teachers and curriculum - if your child needs his/her hand held excessively, this is probably not the best environment. This is a school for students who are ambitious and who do not regret forgoing play time in favor of homework. Moreover, it is definitely not the educational extension of the country club concept. The results - HS valedictorians, International Baccalaureate, US Dept. of Education award - speak for themselves. I cannot think of a better school for my children, private or public, in the Richmond metropolitan area.”

“My children (first and third grade) are thriving at this academically-demanding and nurturing school. Their classmates are brilliant (consequently they have lost their first-in-class status held at previous schools) and they are challenged and taught both by the teachers and by their peers. They spend daily two hours or more on homework and they are blossoming intellectually and academically.”