Our Academic Heritage and Commitment to Academic Excellence
One of the foundations and long standing traditions of our school is our academic excellence. We are extremely proud of the fact that the U. S. Department of Education named St. Giles School a Blue Ribbon School in 2010. We were one of only 50 private schools to receive this award. When you consider that there are 33,366 private schools in the U.S., that’s a pretty impressive feat. The award recognizes St. Giles as high performing, academic school.
While awards are nice, we believe the proof of our success lies in the success of our students. St. Giles students consistently score in the top quartile on national achievement tests. Our graduates are frequent recipients of academic scholarships and awards, many test into honors and advanced placement classes and our graduates have recently been valedictorians and salutatorians at Fenwick and OPRF high schools. They also go on to the best public and private high schools’ (St. Ignatius, St. Pat’s, Fenwick, Trinity, OPRF, North Side Prep, Lane Tech, etc.) and they continue on to some of the best colleges and universities in the country (Cornell, Georgetown, Holy Cross, University of Chicago, NYU, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Princeton, etc.).
Our academic success is tightly aligned with our strong curriculum. St. Giles’ curriculum has been recognized as an example of “best practices” in education. The curriculum is noted to be comprehensive, relevant, integrated and fluid. Subjects include Religion, Language Arts, Literature, Math, Science, Social Studies, Computers, Library, Music, Art, Spanish and Physical Education.
Our curriculum is constantly monitored, evaluated and revised to ensure the success of our students. Objectives and learner outcomes follow National, State of Illinois and Office of Catholic Schools standards. The Archdiocese of Chicago’s School Improvement Process rated St. Giles School as Highly Commendable (the highest rating).
Our teachers use a variety of teaching techniques to meet different learning styles. Importantly we integrate technology into all aspects of learning and assessment. We invest heavily in technology to ensure our teachers and students have the best possible learning environment. To that end, along with our two computer labs, every homeroom classroom has a smart board and we have added two net book carts so that teachers can incorporate computers into their daily lessons.