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School Facts

Principal: Valeeta Walsh Secretary: Suzanne McKinnon School Council Chair: Carol Fortin Trustee: Jules Vanhaelemeesch English & French Immersion Grades: JK-8 St. Joseph's School, 584 Stafford Street, Port Elgin, Ontario N0H 2C1 (519) 389-5495

Our school has approximately 184 students in English and French immersion classrooms. For French immersion grades 1 to 6, the instruction is in French for 75 percent of the day. The 7/8 students have half of their classes in French and then join the English classes for the remainder of their subjects. We have a small group of students from Saugeen First Nation. These students receive one class a day of Ojibwe instruction.

We offer our students all of the traditional school sports. Soccer, cross-country running, volleyball, basketball, track and field are offered for both juniors (Gr. 4/5/6) and intermediates (Gr. 7/8). Primary classes have a Primary Track and Field Day. Primary classes also participate in "house league" sports during recesses. This year we had "recess games" organized for primary classes by junior students with the supervision of a teacher.

Our students participate in speaking competitions (Lions, Legion, County), science fair (Some or our students have gone to the Canada Wide Fair), robotics challenges and design and technology challenges. Students have competed in and won animation challenges and design and technology challenges at the Skills Canada competitions held in Kitchener in May for the past few years. We have chess teams and a Board wide tournament in which our students compete.

Our school is participating in the international program known as Learning Through the Arts. We are in our third year of this exciting program. We have 3 different artists give three lessons on three separate days to our Grades 1 to 6 classes. The artists (musician, poet, potter, speech arts specialist, painter, dramatic arts specialist) work with the classroom teachers to create lessons that use the arts as a means to teach the other subjects...math, language, science, social studies.

We have a very good music program that is growing. Our students have participated in area music festivals.

We had new equipment installed on our playground in 2002 and a soccer field of artificial turf was installed in 2003.

We run a breakfast program in our school, available from 8:30 AM to 8:50 AM during bus arrival time. The program is open to all children and is supported by a wonderful corps of volunteers.

We have an excellent priest, Father Mike Francis, who visits our classes. We have regular liturgical celebrations. Our final mass is held at St. Joseph's Church. Grades 1-8 students with their teachers and support staff walk to the church for this last mass of the school year.

At St. Joseph's School we strive to meet the needs of all children and to educate the "whole" child. If you would like to contact us by email, please click here.