Co-Curricular Education

The Co-Curricular Program at Saint Philomena School encompasses our cultural, creative, technological, kinesthetic, and aesthetic educational programs offered to all students.  We value our children growing in co-curricular academic experiences that promote whole child development. Our students fall in love with those classes and teachers that help them discover, develop and use their unique gifts and talents while building skills and abilities in diverse co-curricular subjects.

Visual Arts

The Saint Philomena School Visual Arts Program recognizes the importance of visual arts, and the effect a strong program can have on individual students, and the entire school community. Art lessons are engaging, educational, and allow for children to show expression of self in a meaningful way. The art lessons at SPS focus on the creative aspect, but also integrate other subject areas as well. While most of class time is spent creating art through a variety of media and processes, students are also learning to make connections to other core subjects and through other cultural contexts. Students are taught to communicate their ideas through the use of visual symbols, and they learn to understand that the visual arts convey meaning. The presentation of artists’ work is also experienced, and students have the chance to reflect on and evaluate the work of their own, as well as their peers, in a respectful and encouraging climate. Each art lesson allows students to use an array of skills, while creating meaningful and expressive pieces of art that any child can be proud of, no matter what their artistic ability may be. The visual art curriculum is designed to build on the skills the children acquire developmentally as they pass from one grade to the next, and concurrently builds on the learning of art history, art concepts, and proper use of art materials as the children mature.

Physical Education

The physical education program at Saint Philomena of the Sacred Heart is designed to promote physical activity and challenge students through various games/activities while also building lifelong learners in the process. Students in grades Kindergarten through 2nd grade have PE once a week, while students in 3rd through 8th grades have it twice a week. Our main goal in the younger years is to help develop fundamental skills that each student will build upon as they get older. Once they reach the middle school level, we then look at how best to use these skills within both team and individual sports. Specific units of study include skill building through sports and activities such as: soccer, ultimate frisbee, basketball, volleyball, badminton, fitness, kickball and capture the flag.

Music & Performing Arts

At Saint Philomena School of the Sacred Heart, music and the performing arts are integrated into an education and experience that allows them to find immersion in music from all over the world which encompasses a multi-cultural and interdisciplinary experience throughout their time as a student here. Choral music remains a constant at each grade level as they move through their years at our school.

Music and the Performing Arts at Saint Philomena School of the Sacred Heart serve as one of the heartbeats of our school community. Whether through Music Ministry for school liturgical services, singing at school-wide events, the Spring Musical, or any of a number of interdisciplinary experiences and events throughout the year, our school culture not only supports the arts, but allows our students to thrive in their school environment, helping to create and foster a love of the Arts and build the Courage and Confidence of our young and future Renaissance Men and Women.

Library and Technology

The Saint Philomena School of the Sacred Heart Library Program is designed to instill a love of reading and research within our students. We read, we inquire and we create. The program spirals so that the lessons learned in one year build upon the next. Our youngest students enjoy story times with stories selected to promote an enjoyment of literature and for students to become accustomed to the vocabulary surrounding reading. Students learn about authors, illustrators and characters. They learn that stories have a beginning, a middle, and an ending. They learn about book care and respect. The lessons reinforce what is taught in their classrooms. Students in older grades take those lessons and build upon them, choosing books that are just right for them and they learn more about library organization and how to do research. Oftentimes, there is collaboration with classroom teachers on special research projects, giving students authentic experience in using their developing skills. Library and technology skills are vitally important to twenty-first century learners.

The Library and Technology programs are intertwined. Our Technology Program is designed to compliment the use of devices within student’s classrooms. During their time here, it is our goal for students to become digitally literate. Students learn age appropriate digital citizenship skills, like website evaluation, how not to be a cyberbully, and how to be safe online. They also learn to code, they learn fundamental typing skills and they have the opportunity to demonstrate their emerging engineering skills using our makerspace. They do this in an environment where they are given freedom to explore and to challenge themselves. Since these skills are emerging in young students, those in grades K-2 visit our learning common twice per week and all other students from Preschool - grade 5 visit once per week.

World Languages

Our World Languages program aims to create a climate for children to discover and develop cultural competencies through exploration of various classical and world languages. Our Passport Program offered in grades 3-5 invites our students to explore French in grade 3, Spanish in grade 4, and Latin in grade 5. With a focus on language and exploration of places, students touch down in lands and languages that provide a global perspective of peoples and cultures.  We encourage our students to embrace a growing excitement and respect lands, languages and people as part of our beautiful and diverse global community.

In middle school, students engage in more in-depth study of language through a more rigorous class experience in Classical and World Languages. Grade 6 students explore a year of Latin as a compliment to the world cultures and geography program offered in social studies and as a foundational understanding of our own English language. In grades 7 and 8, students take the equivalent of a Spanish 1 program over the course of two years. Throughout a student's journey at Saint Philomena School, they will be encouraged to broaden their appreciation for and understanding of world cultures and languages.