St Thomas More Collegiate

Inspired by a vision for Catholic education based on the Essential Elements of the Blessed Edmund Rice Christian Brothers, for almost six decades St. Thomas More Collegiate has been a shining example of a secondary school community centred in Faith. Now in our 60th year, from our humble beginnings, STMC has grown into a model for what is possible when a community dares to dream in bold, daring and imaginative ways.

With families attracted by the academic and athletic success of the STMC graduates, spurred on by our outstanding teachers and coaches, together we have built sport facilities and extended the buildings. Generations-present brought the school into the 21st century – becoming a co-educational school and building state-of-the-art Fine Arts and Athletic facilities.

St. Thomas More Collegiate (STMC) is a Catholic co-educational independent secondary school (grades 8 – 12), in Burnaby, British Columbia (BC), Canada, that has offered young men and women from throughout British Columbia’s Lower Mainland an extraordinary education and a second home for almost six decades. Since 1960, when three Christian Brothers opened the school to 110 Knights, STMC has helped shape thousands of young minds and touched the lives of their families.

Today, STMC is a leader in academics, athletics and fine arts. Repeatedly ranked by the Fraser Institute in the top 10% of secondary schools in BC, St. Thomas More Collegiate gives young people a strong academic foundation for success. Consistently, 99% of STMC students graduate with over 85% pursuing post-secondary studies. A St. Thomas More Collegiate education goes beyond academics. STMC offers students a second home – an extension of family and develops a student’s character and faith; it is a place where young adults feel a sense of pride and teaches them how to participate in a thriving, active community.

STMC’s students are a force for youth philanthropy. Whether preparing and serving dinner for homeless neighbours, raising funds for local non-profits, campaigning for environmentally sensitive practices or travelling to developing countries around the world working side by side with locals to dig wells and build schools, STMC students are standing in solidarity with people marginalized by poverty and injustice. STMC graduates serve their communities in all walks of life, as business leaders, social workers, academics and solid citizens.

St. Thomas More Collegiate develops student programs that promote the harmonious growth of the whole person, fosters the development of higher-order thinking, and prepares its students for life-long learning. STMC’s mission is help each individual grow toward their full potential in their faith, knowledge, and love. Our academic programs are designed to support growth in skills and intellectual maturity to prepare our Knights for life beyond STMC. To learn more about our curriculum, please visit the Department websites listed under the Academics tab.

St. Thomas More Collegiate believes that every one of our students has the ability to excel, and we also recognize that the path to excellence differs for each of us. STMC offers an academic program that is demanding, stimulating and engaging. It challenges students intellectually and encourages them to reach their full academic potential as it provides them with rich learning experiences in a wide variety of subject areas. We offer numerous opportunities for experiential learning, as well as personalized choices in academics and co-curricular & extracurricular activities. Our ultimate goal is to make community connections and apply learning to real-world issues and problems.

Students, parents and teachers work together as partners to help students develop their strengths and passions. Students take ownership and responsibility for their own learning through articulation of individual learner pathways. Teachers, as designers of learning, employ a wide variety of teaching and learning strategies, skills, and tactics. Starting in the 2019-2020 academic year, our program at the Grade 8 and 9 levels is being re-imagined to foster literacy, numeracy, creativity and critical thinking skills.

Students will think broadly, deeply, and creatively. They will learn to ask good questions and to pursue answers to those questions through their mastery of verbal, quantitative, and visual reasoning – reasoning, whose roots, are informed by their command of core content knowledge. This knowledge will enhance students’ appreciation for aesthetics and artistry. They will be flexible, yet resolute in this pursuit; resourceful and innovative, engaged and objective.

Students will develop the many skills and approaches needed for successful collaboration; including respect for everyone, effective listening, intellectual generosity, open-mindedness, diplomacy, persuasion, accountability, and candour while valuing diverse backgrounds and perspectives. Students will learn to write, speak, and present their ideas effectively across the range of forms in a variety of settings while taking their audience into consideration. Students will be comfortable using numbers, equations, data, visual representations, and models. Students will respect the rights and sensibilities of others.

Students will discern meaning from various texts and offer interpretation and analysis. They will develop strong research and analytical skills that will rely on the ability to locate, evaluate, use and site sources. They will apply their understanding of content to the social, societal and scientific issues they encounter, to act as informed citizens. Cultivation of these skills will encourage in students a life-long interest in learning. Students will develop strong executive function skills, including setting goals, organizing ideas, and managing time. They will be creative, resourceful, flexible, and resilient as they generate new ideas and apply knowledge to existing problems or novel situations. They will learn to connect disparate ideas and extend their understanding across various domains and disciplines.

Developing a clearer sense of self, students will better appreciate and respect others while coming to an understanding of their spiritual journey, the world, and their own place in it. Our students will learn to access a variety of media and texts in order to stay informed about local, national, and global events and will gain a sense of individual responsibility within a larger social context. With Jesus and Blessed Edmund Rice as role models, students will understand and appreciate what it means to think beyond themselves and to stand in solidarity with the marginalized locally and globally.