Holy Family Catholic Academy

Holy Family Catholic Academy is nationally and internationally recognized for its commitment to engaging learners with relevant, real-world situations that impact local, national, and international communities. Holy Family Catholic Academy`s unique program offers a faith-based community of students, teachers, and parents working together to create a nurturing, stimulating environment for learners in 2-year-old preschool through Grade 8. Hallmarks of our program`s "thinking curriculum" include:

• Using Teacher Assistants, HFCA maintains an average student-to-teacher ratio of less than 10:1.
• Inquiry-based learning, an engaging, student-centered approach, expands teaching beyond the textbook and develops critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
• Differentiated instruction, a framework that promotes the use of varied instructional approaches to engage, challenge, and maximize learning for all students in the classroom.
• The full-day Kindergarten program provides twice the classroom time as traditional half-day programs.
• Integration of the arts into our curriculum including music, art, and Spanish language instruction.
• An emphasis on literacy--focusing on reading and writing skills in addition to math and technology literacy.

HFCA is the only International Baccalaureate World School (IB) in the Northwest suburbs. IB Certification moves our curriculum from "best practices" to "next practices."

IB aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable, and caring global citizens who are motivated to succeed. The IB framework:

• Encourages students to think independently and drive their own learning, and provides academic rigor to all learners.
• Emphasizes students' personal development.
• Engages students with people in an increasingly globalized rapidly changing world.

The IB framework provides our teachers and staff with:

• Significantly more professional development.
• Access to IB`s online curriculum centre with publications and teaching materials.
• The opportunity to participate in worldwide forums with other IB World Schools who share HFCA`s commitment to a higher quality, challenging, and global education.

HFCA was the first middle school program in Illinois to become STEM certified through AdvancED. To earn STEM Certification, HFCA demonstrated adherence to the AdvancED STEM Standards as reflected by the Academy`s performance across 11 rigorous STEM Indicators. The certification process provides an initial evaluation along with a continuous improvement process, supported by research-based tools and resources. Achieving high scores across the indicators certifies that students have been equipped and trained to be innovative, creative, and systematic problem-solvers across disciplines.