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The primary purpose of the school is to create relaxed and friendly conditions in which children can realize their potential and develop at their own pace, both as individuals and as members of a community.

Marbury has not been modeled on any other school. It has sought to develop its own interpretation of well-known principles of child development and the learning process. The most fundamental of these is that the emotional well-being of the child should always be put before any attempt to introduce learning material, so that the learning ability of the child is unencumbered, and allowed to operate at their most efficient level. We aim to produce an environment in which initiative is not destroyed and resistance to learning and teaching is not generated, or if these conditions are there already, to help the child out of such a difficulty.

There is no punishment at Marbury but we are not a school without discipline. We hold that punishment of children is unnecessary and undesirable and usually a very inefficient way of dealing with problem behaviour. Our aim at Marbury has always been to establish a climate where understanding and sensitivity to the needs to oneself and of others is of high value. Social co-operation emerges naturally from this, and can be demonstrated in the organization of the school community (of students and teachers), which has become such a successful feature of Marbury school life.

Coercion is redundant to the daily experience of the well-adjusted child and in particular is never associated with the learning process at Marbury. Learning can therefore be interest-based, pleasurable, and can engender an accumulating desire to learn. If the demands placed upon the child are unreasonable, are beyond their capacities or do not achieve for the child the love and security they desire, the child may withdraw or rebel and can at best gain attention by being anti-social in their behaviour or, as is commonly expressed, "naughty".

Teachers at Marbury are not passive or dominated by the children. Many children, for various reasons, wish to manipulate adults, but the teachers at Marbury are expected to make use of the flexibility of the school program and their knowledge of the child's personality and background to discriminate the healthy trials ofstrength from the anxiety-based manoeuvres of the child who has a relationship problem in need of attention. Confrontation is different from coercion, and withstanding manipulation without resort to suppressing or undercutting the needs of the child, requires strength and resourcefulness on the part of the teacher.

For the teacher, the extra effort involved is repaid by the pleasure of seeing new growth of the child's personality towards self-discipline, internal restrains, and a more developed awareness of its own person and their relationship to others.

Social and ethical development is especially fostered at Marbury. Involvement in the care of the school premises and of the younger children in the school, becomes part of the responsibility of all students from upper primary to matriculation.