Cathedral School of Saint Mary offers a Classical program that maintains a balanced curriculum in accordance with the Principles and Standards for the Catholic Schools developed by the Texas Catholic Conference Education Department (TCCED).  Co-curricular and extra-curricular instruction includes, but is not limited to, altar server training, choir, athletics, cheerleading, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, yearbook staff, Student Council and Game Club.

What is Classical Education?

The Classical Academic Press describes it as “a long tradition of education that has emphasized the seeking after of truth, goodness, and beauty and the study of the liberal arts and the great books. 
What are the liberal arts? They are grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. This approach to education also includes the study of Latin.  The classical approach teaches students how to learn and how to think.” 
What makes classical education so effective? It is largely because of its approach to how and when students are taught. Regardless of their learning style, children learn in three phases or stages (grammar, logic or dialectic, and rhetoric), known as the trivium. It is this approach to teaching students based on their developmental stage that makes it so very effective. 

Traits 
Excited about learning
Enjoys games, stories, projects, songs
Short attention span
Wants to touch, smell, hear and see
Imaginative & creative
Easily memorizes

In the Classroom
Guided discovery; explore, find things; use lots of tactile items; sing; play games; chant; recite; color, draw, paint; build; use body movements; short creative projects; show and tell; drama; hear/read/tell stories; field trips

Traits

In the Classroom
Lots of hands-on work, projects; field trips, make collection displays, models; integrate subjects through above means; immersive language; recitations, memorization; drills, games.

Traits
Still excitable but needs challenges
Critical, enjoys debate
Wants to know “behind the scenes” facts
Curious about why for most things

In the Classroom
Time lines, charts, maps (visual materials); debates, persuasive reports; drama re-enactments, formal logic, oral/written presentations; guests speakers, trips.

• Latin taught beginning in 2nd grade
• Curriculum is rooted in sound Catholic teachings
• Dialectic method used in classes
• Shurley Grammar curriculum
• Riggs Phonics Program