Branded by the Story of the Virgin Mary: A Case Study of St Mary’s RC Primary School

Storytelling is as old as the rocks and spans millions of generations since mankind came into existence. While the notion of storytelling or the narrative has been employed as a vehicle for the cultural heritage, information tool or entertainment vessel, there is a growing interest in the instrumentation of storytelling in other functionalities (Loyer, 2010). St Mary’s RC primary School employed storytelling in branding the school in both the philosophy and the architectural design of the school building championed by its headmaster. The use of the symbolism of Mary the mother of Jesus has had a positive impact in the turnaround of the school giving the school better image. The use of the story of Mary led to good values and a successful record of performance under the leadership of Mr X who has vigorously pursued the virgin Mary’s ideals and life story. The study is an investigation and analysis of the headmaster’s passion in the story of Mary as a tool for creating good school ethos and improved performance. The paper concludes that storytelling was an effective tool for branding the school, a view that is shared across a broad range of contributions to the growing board of literature on the use of storytelling in the process of branding. While the focus in this study is on a school the assertions in the literature that every entity is known by its story is an important facet to build from for individuals and organizations.