Our Model of Education
the three pillars
VSH Junior High students transition from Montessori into a Classical model of education while continuing Montessori activities within the school community such as gardening, cooking, and animal husbandry. Students in Junior High have entered into a new phase of learning called the dialectic or logic stage. Students at this age begin to hone their critical thinking skills and master sound reasoning. They utilize the foundation that has been built during their grammar years and begin to look at relationships and analyze “how” facts fit together. Ultimately, our goal is students begin to reason, communicate effectively and embrace Truths of their Catholic Faith.
Our Junior High curriculum combines a broad, liberal arts education with a strong emphasis on the development of Christian virtues and an appreciation of beauty. Through our Three Pillars Model, we form our students in:
Intellect
We teach our students through a Classical and Montessori methods of education, rich in History, Language, reading, writing, arithmetic and more. Students are well prepared to enter Chesterton Academy for high school.
Character
We help students grow in the four cardinal virtues of prudence, temperance, fortitude and justice, which we believe are the foundation of leadership.
Spirituality
Our students come to understand and embrace the truth of why they exist: to know God, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world and be happy with Him forever in the next.
Our Patron: St. Mother Teresa
St. Mother Teresa (1910-1997) is the patron saint of Valley of the Sacred Heart Academy. This heroic Albanian nun founded the Missionaries of Charity in 1948, an order dedicated to serving the poorest of the poor. The first 17 years of her vocation she was a teacher with the Sisters of Loreto in Calcutta. Her work as a teacher, paved the way for her to do incredible work for the Lord.
St. Mother Teresa understood the beauty and importance of Catechesis of the Good Shepherd to form children and adults. Because of this, she had her novices trained in Catechesis of the Good Shepherd as she understood well the necessity of beauty, awe, and need for sacred silence. St. Mother Teresa is our patron saint of Valley of the Sacred Heart Academy, because she saw the importance of educating children and to teach them to grow in virtue and love of God. Like St. Mother Teresa, we are not only forming minds, we are forming saints.
“Do ordinary things with extraordinary love.”
Junior High Curriculum
Our Academic Approach
Courses taken during the Junior High, logic years, begin to tie subjects together in a way that examines all learning through the lens of a Catholic worldview, teaching wisdom and virtue through great literature, history, foreign language, theology, and the sciences. Subjects covered in Junior High are:
Math, Language Arts (Literature, Poetry, Writing, Grammar) History, Geography, Theology, Science, Foreign Language, Music, Art, and P.E.
The Humanities Program
IEW, Institute of Excellence in Writing, is the cornerstone of our Language Arts program. Using this program, students become confident and competent communicators and thinkers via listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Our students are read to and read variety of genres at their grade level. Strong reading is a foundation for strong writing. Therefore, our History program is literature based with geography woven throughout the time period of a given academic year: Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, and Modern. Each year, students explore a foreign language, French, Italian, or Sign Language as an introduction to languages and cultures. Our Junior High students take theology, but their main formation comes through Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, going deep into the Old Testament and liturgy in a weekly level III atrium.
The Math & Science Program
Students use a foundational, spiral approach to math using Saxon Math. VSH uses multiple strategies to place and assess students throughout the academic year. The Saxon math program is accompanied with a rotation of fundamental sciences: Earth Science, Biology, Chemistry, and Physics.
The Fine Arts
Students have art class on a weekly basis and produce art that is presented in the annual school Spring Art Show. Junior High students takes part in choir as corner stone to their curriculum. Students learn to sing and read notes. There are multiple opportunities for students to demonstrate their choral abilities throughout the school year.
Student Life
Forming Leaders and Saints
Clubs & Activities
Sports/clubs
Volleyball
Basketball
Soccer
Golf
Robotics
Student Council
Faith & Service
Pro-Life Activities
Annual Spiritual Retreat
Fall and Spring Day Hikes
