Located in the London Borough of Lewisham, the academy opened in September 2007, replacing two previous schools: St Joseph's Academy and Our Lady of Lourdes primary school [1] In June 2017, Ofsted described the school as ‘Good’ in three areas; Effectiveness of Leadership and Management, Personal Development, Behaviour and Welfare and Early Years Provision [2] and in 2015, The Inspection 48 Report rated the school as ‘Good’ [3] The Academy motto; ‘Let Your Light Shine’ is taken from St Matthew's Gospel and captures the academy's strong Catholic values, and aim is to ensure that the talents and strengths of every young person is nurtured, encouraged, developed and celebrated.

The Academy had a new build budget of £38 million and is directly funded by the DCSF and receives additional support from its sponsors, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Southwark and the De La Salle Congregation.

In Key Stage 3, all students study National Curriculum subjects, complemented by a technology and creative arts carousel, delivered in specialised classrooms with dedicated resources and equipment.

Students are offered a choice of extra subjects at KS4 that will form their individual GCSE curriculum.

The secondary phase currently has 750 students, 6 classes in each year group with a generous ratio of staff.