Student Life
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Discover the value of a K-8 education
Educators, parents, and nationally respected research institutes have concluded that the K-8 model of schooling has many advantages.
These curricular, social, mental, and community benefits have been the subject of many studies and newspaper articles.
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Academic benefits
- Studies have found that eighth graders score significantly higher on standardized tests than those in middle schools.
- Attendance rates are higher and drop-out rates lower for children who have attended K-8 schools.
- Teachers are accustomed to teaming, planning together, and working with the same group of students. They are trained to teach elementary students and bring a student-centered approach to the school environment.
- Parents are more inclined to stay connected to and involved in K-8 schools than middle schools - a factor that correlates highly with student academic success.
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Emotional/Social Benefits
- Children are able to experience the social stability of a familiar surrounding with familiar staff for their entire primary education.
- Ten-year-old children are at their most vulnerable when they are ejected from a stable school environment and asked to navigate a new school while they are still learning to negotiate with each other.
- Older children learn responsibility as they serve as role models in many capacities and through service projects, while the younger students look up to them.
- Students show higher self-esteem and confidence, as well as a healthier adolescent development.
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EARLY LEARNING CENTER (PK3-PK4)
The Early Learning Center offers a Catholic community setting, while providing a quality education. Each child is fostered through growth and learning. The program nurtures children's naturally inquisitive, explorative, and creative nature and offers strong academic foundations that ensure they will be ready to succeed. The curriculum is designed to make the first school experience a positive and rewarding one, and emphasizes oral literacy and listening skills, social interaction with peers, fine- and gross-motor development, indoor and outdoor play, science exploration, teamwork and cooperation, and preparation for kindergarten. In religion, emphasis is placed on teaching students that they are infinitely precious in the eyes of God and that God has a plan for them.
St. Anna has a strong sense of family within our school community. Our Early Learners are introduced to the "big school" through the Buddy Program. Middle school students are paired with pre-kindergarten friends for weekly Mass, as well as for some fun activities throughout the year! The program allows for student-led instruction, and provides the basis for a smooth transition into the school's K-8 building after pre-kindergarten.
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Signature Events
- Buddy Program
- Halloween Parade
- Veteran's Day Concert
- Christmas Around the World
- Books and Beyond
- Spring Concert
- Field Day
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Signature Events
- Apple Picking
- Halloween Parade
- Books and Beyond
- Service Projects
- Christmas Around the World
- Christmas and Spring Concerts
- Field Trips
- Buddy Night
- Field Day
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Elementary Grades (K-3)
The elementary grades foster a sense of fun in learning, to inspire students to become lifelong learners. The focus is educating children intellectually, morally, and spiritually.
Students remain with their homeroom teacher for all subjects except specialist areas. Hands-on activities reinforce topics and provide visual manipulatives for increasingly complex skills.
Professional, certified teachers provide a rigorous curriculum that includes religion, reading, writing, math, science, and specialist areas. Students learn about the Catholic faith and its fundamental tenets. Reading and language mechanics in K-2 use the SuperKids program, in which students apply phonics skills to decode unknown words, read with fluency and expression, and vocabulary. They begin to read for comprehension and learn how to summarize. Students learn to form letters correctly and legibly both in print and in cursive, and they use their skills to write basic passages such as short stories and poems. In math, students learn adding, subtracting, multiplication, problem-solving skills, pattern recognition, and fact families that serve as the basis for many higher-level maths. Science topics include life cycles, sound, geology, plants, ecology, and weather.
In addition to the core subjects, students participate in specialist subjects that enhance their learning experience and expose them to many other facets of education. These subjects support the development of social skills, academic responsibility, good study habits, and citizenship in their communities, both in the classroom and school-wide.
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Intermediate Grades (4-5)
Intermediate grades transition students from the teacher-driven learning of elementary school to the more student-focused learning of middle school. Students in grades 4 and 5 rotate between teachers and begin to recognize the importance of personal responsibility in their learning.
These grades learn how to conduct research and how to organize this research into writing projects and presentations. They summarize, analyze and evaluate both sources and forms of literature. In math, they cover multiplication, division, logical reasoning, fractions, mixed numbers, and decimals. Science becomes more in-depth with topics such as adaptations, magnets, electricity, basic chemistry/physics, and space science. Students participate in the annual Science Fair, using the scientific method to answer their own scientific questions. Religion classes introduce more sophisticated aspects of the Catholic church and introduce students to their relationship with their faith.
Socially, students become aware of the world around them and of their place in society. They begin to understand how their lives both affect and are affected by others through the Honors Club (part of the National Junior Honor Society) and multiple community service projects. They build the foundations for conscientious, responsible and ethical decisions in the future.
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Signature Events
- National Junior Honor Society
- All Saints Day
- Christmas Pageant
- Advent projects
- Valentine's Day Activities
- Spelling Bee
- Geography Bee
- Science Fair
- Field Day
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Signature Events
- Pre-K and Kindergarten Buddy Programs
- Hearts for Heat
- Class retreats
- Socks for Santa Service Project
- Geography Bee
- eCybermission Competition
- Spelling Bee
- Diocesan Declamation Festival
- Science Fair
- Nature's Classroom
- DC Trip (every other year)
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Middle School (6-8)
Our middle school prides itself on providing a traditional, rigorous curriculum that prepares students for their high school of choice. Middle school includes grades six, seven, and eight. Students are assigned to homerooms by grade and rotate for classes.
The National Junior Honor Society and our community service projects provide opportunities for students to take on roles of leadership and serve as Catholic Christian models through their service to the community.
Students make the transition from memorizing information to using it to analyze, evaluate, draw conclusions, and develop problem-solving abilities. They focus on developing higher level thinking skills, more mature writing skills, and better study habits.
Our 1:1 iPad program gives students the opportunity to use a variety of applications for various academic purposes, from exploring 3D models of Earth to studying vocabulary, from historical timelines to geographical points of reference. This technology provides enormous benefits to learning, especially as a tool that shares information visually.
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