St. Peter’s School elementary program has as its ultimate goal to encourage each child to love and serve God and others, thereby transforming self and society.
St. Peter’s School offers a challenging curriculum, set on high standards for student achievement, and contributes to academic success. The prevailing expectations of faculty, parents, and students are that:
Our elementary core curriculum includes religion, language arts, mathematics, science, and social students. These core subjects help students foster a relationship with God the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Religion: The curriculum is rooted in Scripture that is faithful to the tradition of the Catholic Church. It is a curriculum spirited by the general directory Catechesis centered on the person of Jesus Christ. The students enter into a relationship with God the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Language Arts: Students are challenged to grow their literacy skills, reading comprehension, and literature. Students work on developing comprehension, vocabulary, spelling, penmanship (print & cursive), composition, and grammar.
Mathematics: Students must be able to extend their mathematical learning to all areas of their lives. Students’ skills to develop for the future are critical thinking skills and problem-solving, creativity and innovation; communication and collaboration; and the ability to integrate learning across all content areas.
Science: The science curriculum provides, helps, and shares the understanding of God’s creation through exploration and inquiry. Students will foster knowledge and understanding of earth and space, life, physical sciences. Students will also master the concepts of scientific inquiry, knowledge, and technology.
Social Studies: knowledge and appreciation are gained through social and civic observation, analysis, and participation. Emphasis is placed on facts, concepts, and generalizations derived from the areas of History, Geography, Government, Economics, and other related disciplines.
In addition to the core curriculum, St. Peter’s School also continues to include art, music, technology, Spanish, and physical education as key components of a student’s overall growth. Each week, students in all grade levels will participate in a different special each day.
Art education stimulates, develops, and refines the higher-order and critical thinking skills of problem-solving, analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and decision-making.
Music is a gift of God unique to humans. Responding to music, analyzing, performing, and creating music are the fundamental music process in which humans engage. Listening, moving to music, singing, and playing instruments enables students to acquire knowledge and skills that can be developed in no other way.
The Technology curriculum exposes students to the basics of using a computer and tablet and how to navigate the programs that they use in the classroom every day. Students are also exposed to basic computer coding and programming skills and appropriate techniques for researching topics online and differentiate between relevant and irrelevant information.
Physical Education is designed to help students pursue the knowledge, skills, and confidence to enjoy a lifetime of healthful physical activity.
Spanish: Students are exposed to the basic language and writing skills of Spanish so they can provide basic communication abilities and also understand the culture of the Hispanic community.
One of our elementary program goals is to encourage each child to love and serve God and others, thereby transforming self and society. Your child will be instilled with Christian attitudes, and values students can apply to daily life. Numerous activities help students achieve this goal, including daily prayer, religion classes, weekly liturgies, classroom visits by parish priests and guest speakers.
St. Peter’s Virtues in Practice program is a school-wide initiative that instills a new character-building virtue each month. Every week, a suggested activity is given to promote that month’s virtue.
Students are encouraged to put these suggestions into practice, and teachers select “Students of the Month” based on the demonstration of these virtues.
Positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) is a way for schools to encourage good behavior. With PBIS, schools teach children about behavior, just as they would teach about other subjects like reading or math. The focus of PBIS is prevention, not punishment.
With the focus on positive behavior, results are improved academic performance and student communication, strong teacher-student relationships, increased instructional time, and reduced discipline referrals.
Students at St. Peter’s are rewarded for their good behavior by earning Spartans Bucks, which can be exchanged for items from our Spartan store or be used for special opportunities like Principal for a Day or lunch with the principal or teacher.
There are many activities and extracurricular activities that students can participate in during their academic year. Each grade level participates in field trips every year and our sixth graders take a multi-day trip to Camp Damascus.
Students can participate in one of the many after school clubs or participate in youth sports alongside their classmates.