St. George's School KEY INSIGHTS

The school is anything but ordinary. This is as true of its beautiful architecture as it is of its ambitions, which the school wears proudly. St. George’s School—or, as it’s often called, Saints—doesn’t want to be any commonplace school. It is driven by the vision of building young men to become impactful leaders and agile partners in and for their communities.

The school wants to shape not just the boys who attend, or even just the local community, but the world we live in. But to do that, they take a dedicated focus on the boys. A phrase you’ll often hear from the staff spells their focus out perfectly: “Building fine young men. One boy at a time.” And the boys attending the school are certainly impressive.

All around the foyer, students’ art is on display, demonstrating considerable talent. At the end of each school year, the school presents artwork from students in Grades 8 to 12. This year’s display, which was scattered throughout the foyer during our visit, reflects the creative talent that is nurtured at the school.

ON THE SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT

The new Senior School buildings are set to be state-of-the-art facilities. Their modern design, from Gensler Architecture, the firm behind Shanghai Tower and Facebook’s headquarters, emphasizes natural lighting with floor-to-ceiling windows, uses fresh air ventilation, rather than the recycled air in the existing building, and is eco-friendly, with a LEED Gold rating.

While the school is, indeed, a school first and foremost, St. George’s School takes a holistic approach, with student life, residential life for boarding students, academic work, and co-curriculars integrating with one another.

Each grade has a head of the grade, a system described as “a godsend” by Science Teacher, Catherine Murray Hoenig, who hadn’t experienced it in other schools prior to joining St. George’s. The head-of-grade teacher has a detailed understanding of each boy’s progress and challenges and co-ordinates with their teachers, coaches, counsellors and parents to ensure that when hitches occur in a boy’s school life—Murray Hoenig gives the example of a boy who experiences mood changes with the drearier seasons—they can respond accordingly.

The school recognizes that what happens outside the classroom impacts the ability of students to learn in the classroom, and vice versa, but it goes beyond that—it gets at the core of the kinds of young men the school is working to build.

ON THE SCHOOL CULTURE

St. George’s Associate Principal of Student Life Brian Lee boils the school’s culture down to a balance of excellence and care that strives to build character in the boys who graduate. The school sees student life not as filler between classes, but rather as an intrinsic com-ponent of it. The student’s life isn’t just a series of classes, nor does he cease to exist outside the classroom. If the classroom is a brick, the space between and around class time is the mortar that holds it in place.

“Kids here really do strive to be the best version of themselves right across the board,” says Brian Lee, Associate Principal of Student Life. “It’s a culture that puts character education, character development, at the forefront of our collective thoughts—and that’s everybody in the community that knows that we’re a school of character.”

Lee takes it back to the school’s favourite phrase, which is often repeated among students, staff and parents: building fine young men. While a high-achieving student may accomplish plenty in their life, Lee notes the school’s drive is for their fine young men to grow into old men who can look back on a life with a positive impact on the world.

Because the students aren’t dividing themselves into girls and boys, there aren’t girls’ activities and boys’ activities, nor is there one way of being a boy that contrasts with the one way of being a girl. Where boys may be more stand-offish in mixed settings, teachers talk excitedly about how comfortable the boys are with arms around one another’s shoulder and confiding in one another. And they’re more comfortable opening up to their teachers.

ON THE BOARDING PROGRAM

The boarding residences are the gem of St. George’s School. That’s how Gillian Ani, Associate Director of Residential Life, described it. Her conviction is palpable in the way she describes the residences.

Located on a slice of the Junior School campus, the residences are a somewhat more modern apartment block nestled behind the old nuns’ residence and adjacent to the Junior School building and playground. The program generally houses in the area of 90 to 100 students in Grades 8 to 12.

The diverse range of backgrounds come together to form an exceptionally tight community. That community consists not only of the students but also over a dozen house parents—that is, teachers who also live in the residence—who also come with their own families. “It really feels like an extended family. The students that live together have really close relationships,” Ani says.

The school requires active involvement from every student living in residence, and it’s hard to see why students wouldn’t want to be involved. The activities run every weekend and take advantage of the

local amenities Vancouver has to offer, from paintball and go-karting to watching movies in the theatre. And typically every other weekend the house takes students on an overnight trip. This could include rock climbing or mountain biking or, in the winter, hitting some of B.C.’s world-class slopes for skiing and snowboarding. This last winter, Ani says, 35 students participated in the ski and snowboard program. “It’s a really engaged student body,” Ani adds.

While international students may sometimes struggle to fit in with the schools they’ve joined, as they are separated from past friend groups and may feel

separated from their culture, Ani says St. George’s School works hard to ensure that’s not the case here. In fact, the work to integrate the boarding students and the day students often involves programs to get the day students feeling more comfortable joining the boarding students. That includes allowing day students to sleep over on some nights and giving boarding students a pass for a friend to join on the weekend programming.

ON THE ACADEMIC ENVIRONMENT

The school’s motto, “Sine Timore Aut Favore”, is ingrained in its environment. The Latin phrase means “Without Fear or Favour,” and the school recognizes that students have diverse educational needs. This flexibility does not mean favouring those who deviate from the norm. Indeed, the school sees it as quite the opposite. By addressing each boy’s unique needs and learning style, St. George’s School ensures a balanced educational experience for all students, not just those who excel within traditional learning environments.

Each teacher brings to the school their own background and approach to learning. The school isn’t a Harkness school, for example, though a number of teachers here employ the Harkness pedagogical method, according to Director of Learning Sam Johnston. The school also nurtures a mindset that is centred on inquiry, helping students to develop their natural curiosity by encouraging not simply looking for the right answers, but also to be thoughtful and ask the right questions.

The school is aligned with B.C.’s curriculum, using the Ministry of Education’s framework for its courses and graduating students with a provincial diploma, but Johnston notes the school’s programming is “supplemented with additional experiential opportunities” and “quite rigorous work.”

The school also offers a wide selection of AP courses for those seeking advanced education in various subjects. In fact, the school offers among the highest number of AP courses in all of B.C., and Johnston says the uptake on those offerings is significant. While not all students take all APs, a lot of students will at least take one or two, with some taking more.

One parent, with one child who has graduated from St. George’s School and another who is approaching graduation, has only the highest praises for the academics programming at St. George’s. Her eldest came to the school in Grade 8 after she was told by his previous school that he “had no more potential, that he wasn’t really going to be able to achieve much” because of how far behind he was at his age. That same boy graduated from St. George’s School, having won awards every year and never having an average below 90 percent.

ON CO-CURRICULAR PROGRAMS

Co-curriculars are an essential part of the St. George’s experience. Students are required in Grades 8 to 10 to take a cocurricular in each of the three terms in the school year, and they require one in two out of three terms for Grades 11 and 12. Students, staff and parents alike speak in glowing terms of the vast array of options students have in co-curriculars, from a wide range of sports available to the different arts they can do, from theatre arts to pottery to music.

By all accounts, St. George’s School is a place where boys go to discover they are passionate about activities and subjects they never would have thought they would be passionate about. Just about everyone we spoke with knew about one current student from Finland who went to St. George’s thinking hockey was his sport, only to find, upon arrival, that his true passion was in rugby, and most had similar stories.

Students similarly tell us they went to the school as athletes but found a passion for art. “If you were to go to the rugby field, like half those guys are doing stuff you would never even guess. Our prop plays the trombone—you just wouldn’t guess that stuff,” one Grade 12 day student says.

Another boarding student from Finland, who came to St. George’s School in Grade 10, plays hockey, and he thought that would be the biggest focus of his cocurriculars. Now in Grade 12, has found a passion for television production, even achieving an award for that work. Asking himself how he got to that point, after never thinking he would be interested or talented in arts, the student reflects: “I’ve been kind of falling in love with this thing the entire two years I’ve been doing this.”

The school’s holistic approach ensures that students graduate as confident, capable, and compassionate young men, in addition to accomplished scholars. Overall, St. George’s School offers an exceptional educational experience within its state-of-the-art facilities, shaped by a rigorous curriculum and a strong focus on character development. The school is committed to nurturing the unique talents of each student, helping them become well-rounded individuals who are prepared to contribute meaningfully to the world.