Division Overview

Primary Division: Grade 1 & 2

Classes for Holy House’s youngest students aim to introduce students to the rich liturgical and academic rhythms which characterise Holy House, to foster an awareness of history and a love of literature and learning in general, and to support parents in teaching basic literacy and numeracy skills. Students will be introduced to basic science, music and art concepts through age-appropriate adaptations of the skills and knowledge being taught in the older grade levels.

Growing in Faith: Primary students attend Morning Prayer, Mass, and Evening Prayer along with the older students, and focus on the same monthly virtue. They learn stories from the Bible and study the lives of the saints throughout the liturgical year.

Emerging Literacy Skills: Our students listen to a variety of classic children’s literature as well as stories related to the historical time period being studied at Holy House that year. Time for free reading as well as listening to read-alouds ensures that they have an exposure to a broad range of literature along with quality children’s picture books. Students work on reading and writing with the use of phonics readers, letter practice, copy-work, and grammar and writing activities. Calendar skills, counting, and other math skills form part of the daily schedule, though math is not formally taught as part of the Primary Division classes.

Arts, Music & PE: Primary students enjoy weekly art lessons related to the styles and techniques being studied by the older students and also participate in Schola Cantorum, singing and playing time-honoured children’s songs, games, and dances while learning the fundamentals of music literacy. Time is also provided for physical activity with daily PE class.

Science, History & Latin: Science concepts and experiments may integrate with the learning taking place in the older grades occurring on a weekly basis. History lessons and basic geography skills learned may be related to local, provincial or national history and community understanding or could be taken from texts such as The Story of Civilization and The Story of the World and supplemented with colouring pages and other activities. Latin is introduced using Song School Latin from Classical Academic Press.

Beginner Division: Grade 3 & 4 

The Beginner Division provides a transition period for students who are not yet reading and writing with the fluency necessary to accomplish the goals of the Junior Division, yet who have the maturity to begin engaging with the same classic literature and historical themes as the older students. Students in this division will build their spelling, printing/cursive, and pre-writing skills through direct instruction, literature studies, and guided narration work.   

Junior & Intermediate Divisions: Grade 5-9 

Students in the Junior (Grades 5-6) and Intermediate (Grades 7-9) divisions are expected to read and write fluently so they can explore, discuss, and respond to literature, history, and science texts with a high level of independent engagement. Junior and Intermediate students likewise may share some classes together and separate into smaller groups for other classes, depending on their experience and skill level in each subject.