Saint Benedict Catholic Voluntary Academy

Saint Benedict Catholic Voluntary Academy is a Catholic secondary school with academy status in the Darley Abbey district of Derby. The school maintains a Catholic ethos, being the only Catholic secondary school in the City of Derby. It educates around 1500 students, with more than 100 teachers, as well as a non-teaching support staff such as LSAs, CPMs and House Administrators.School historyThe school was built on its current site in, after the land had been acquired by the Sisters of Mercy, and St. Philomena's High School for Senior Girls moved from Broadway, where it had been located since 1947. In 1971, St. Philomena's merged with the local St. Mary's Secondary School. The two Catholic secondary schools in Derby - Saint Thomas More and Saint Ralph Sherwin - merged in 1986, to make the current site unique as the only place of secondary Catholic education within the city of Derby. The school was named after St. Benedict, and had a logo with a Latin motto, 'Crux Sancti Patris Benedicti' ('the cross of our holy father Benedict'), until the school logo was changed in 2002, to show a more angelic looking version of St. Benedict.HousesThe school operates a house system. The houses, which are all named after leading Catholic figures, are Kolbe (after Maximilian Kolbe), McAuley (after Catherine McAuley), Romero (after Óscar Romero), John Paul (after Pope John Paul II), Bakhita (after Josephine Bakhita) and Teresa (after Mother Teresa).