St. Patrick's Elementary School

St. Patrick's School welcomes prospective applicants to our school community. St. Patrick's is a Kindergarten to Grade Seven school, located in Victoria, British Columbia. The choice of how you want your child to be educated is an important one; thank you for considering St. Patrick's School. St. Patrick's offers a challenging and dynamic academic program that follows the curriculum outlined by the British Columbia Ministry of Education. In this positive, faith-based learning environment, students engage in learning as a life-long process, becoming independent and critical thinkers who accept responsibility for themselves and their community. Our extracurricular program extends learning opportunities, inspiring students to explore their potential in athletics, fine arts and community service. St. Patrick's is a nurturing place where Students and staff respect and treat others with equal dignity before God. Interpersonal relationships mature through the ongoing development of skills such as communication, conflict resolutions, cooperation and problem solving. Trust and support enhance the formation of the whole, compassionate person and the growth of the community.

St. Patrick's is located in the beautiful city of Victoria, British Columbia. The school currently enrols 350 students from Kindergarten to Grade 7. St. Patrick's also offers a Before & After School Care program. St. Patrick's is a vibrant, fully alive, Christian community, rooted in the traditions of the Catholic Church and committed to excellence. We acknowledge that parents are the primary educators of their children. Working in partnership with parents, we provide an education that fulfills each child's spiritual, intellectual, physical, emotional, social and cultural needs. Each child at St. Patrick's is unique and is encouraged to be the best he or she can be while sharing his or her gifts and talents.

The school that was to become St Patrick’s was founded in 1956 as a coordinated effort among many stakeholders – lay, vowed religious, and clergy. It began as an initiative of the parishioners of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish (St Patrick’s Parish since 1960), led by pastor Father Michael McNamara, and involving great contributions from its School Building Committee – chaired by C.N. Montague, a fund-raising committee – led by Des Hoban, the Men’s Society, and Catholic Women’s League. The architect was parishioner John Di Castri, whose original design was a four-room school, and it was built by contractor E.J. Hunter and Sons. The Men’s Society took charge of preparing the grounds, building a bridge across Bowker Creek, and laying a water supply line beneath it. The Catholic Women’s League provided all the school’s student desks and was instrumental in remodeling a house next door to the school as a teachers’ residence for the Sisters of St Ann.

As a Catholic School community dedicated to the spirit of Christian education, our mission is to create an educational environment that allows each child to experience spiritual, academic, physical, and emotional growth while acquiring the skills and Christian values necessary to lead a full, rich and rewarding life.

St. Patrick’s School offers a comprehensive music program to students from Kindergarten through Grade 7. In addition to general music classes, St. Patrick’s also offers an extensive choral program as an extra-curricular for students who are interested in singing. St. Patrick’s has a primary choir for students in Gr.2-3, and an intermediate choir for students in Gr.4-7. The choir is one of the top ranked choirs in British Columbia, and has won a number of awards at the Greater Victoria Performing Arts Festival.

Each class will participate in gym class twice a week. Each class will begin with a vigorous warm-up followed by a skill developing activity that will then be used in a concluding game at the end of each class. The Primary program consists of 3 major components – games, gymnastics and dance. Athletes will explore a variety of games that foster the development of a number of skills that will involve projection, receiving and retaining of objects with hands, feet and equipment such as scoops, tennis racquets and baseball bats. Modified equipment is used to ensure safety and success. Modified traditional games of soccer, basketball and volleyball will also be explored.

In gymnastics the athlete will explore shapes, balances, levels, directions and space using partners and/or groups on mats, ropes, trestle equipment and through the use of a parachute. Although students only take two gym classes per week, they have opportunities to participate in physical activities at recess, lunch hour, swimming lessons and in our new Action Schools program (in grade 3 you can also join the Cross Country and Track & Field teams).

The intermediate physical education program is a well balanced program which includes opportunities for participation in a variety of indoor and outdoor activities from across the five activity categories that enable students to develop a range of non-locomotor, locomotor and manipulative movement skills.