The School’s History

At St Joseph’s we have strong historical links with the local community that date back nearly 100 years. On 29 August 1927, St Joseph’s Infant and Elementary Schools opened their doors to 320 pupils. The building was situated on land, which had been given by the Marquis of Bute to the Institute of Charity (Rosminians).

Parishioners worshipped in the adjacent temporary tin church and the priests lived in a neighbouring end of terrace house in New Zealand Road. A permanent church was opened in 1936 and the present presbytery built later.

In the 1950's with the re-organisation of Secondary education the Elementary school became a Junior school. In 1979 the Infants and Juniors schools were amalgamated under the Headteacher and became St Joseph’s Primary School.

In 1994 there was an opportunity to move to larger premises at 204, North Road, which had formerly housed St Joseph’s Convent School. The school in Whitchurch Road was sold to the L.A. and became a Welsh Medium Primary School.

It is interesting to see the links between the Convent School and St Joseph’s School. In 1925 the Parish of St Joseph’s was growing fast. The new estate at Mynachdy had been built and many children found the walk to St Peter’s too long. Some were attending the local “council” schools.

The Sisters’ of St Joseph were invited to open a small school and convent in two houses in Whitchurch Road to fill the gap before the new parish schools were ready. However, parents asked for the convent school to continue and it moved to “Oakridge”, in North Road when numbers became too great for the original school. More buildings were added and eventually “Oakridge” house, which had stood in the corner of the present Infants’ playground, was demolished in the late 1970's.

The Convent school closed in 1993 and a year later St Joseph’s Primary School “moved in”. St Joseph, our patron, continues to guide and protect our children as carefully as once he looked after God’s own son.

ST JOSEPH’S SHIELD

Mr. David Massey, son of the former Head of Infants, Mrs. Helena Massey, designed the shield for St Joseph’s Primary School.

The design was drawn from those tools associated with the profession of carpentry. This is particularly appropriate when one considers the name of the school.

The tools presented in St Joseph’s school shield are the saw, hammer and mace. The S.J. depicted upon the shield was derived from the original Corpus Christi cap of previous years.

2025 is an exciting time of great change for us. Our pupil numbers are increasing and we are still building on our successful Inspection in 2017 and are busily embedding the Curriculum for Wales. Our Nursery Provision, which opened in September 2019 continues to flourish. We have had our old roof replaced and are very pleased with the results. We have also replaced all the windows in our Annex area, replaced our flooring throughout and painted all classrooms. We have installed a new outdoor classroom and new canopies for our Foundation Phase have been installed.  There are also plans in place to re tarmac the school playground, the soft area outside the Nursery has already been completed. We are negotiating for grants at the moment to further enhance our school building and make it more Eco friendly.  We have a strategic vision for ways forward and are on our journey.