Convent of the Sacred Heart (Connecticut)

The Convent of the Sacred Heart is a private, independent Catholic all-girls school from kindergarten through twelfth grade with a coed preschool and prekindergarten located in Greenwich, Connecticut. As an independent day school, it is privately operated within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport and accepts students from throughout Fairfield and Westchester County. It serves students ages 3–18 in preschool through twelfth grade.

Background

The Convent of the Sacred Heart was established in 1848 in Manhattan. The school moved to the Bronx in 1904 and opened in Greenwich in 1945. It is an all-girls school from kindergarten through twelfth grade with a coed preschool and prekindergarten.

Madeleine Sophie Barat founded the Society of the Sacred Heart in Paris in 1800. She felt strongly that providing girls with an education based on Christian values was essential for a healthy society to emerge from the upheaval of the French Revolution. St. Madeleine Sophie envisioned a school that, while laying the foundation for an active faith and compassionate service for the poor, would develop each student’s gifts and awaken a thirst for lifelong learning.

In 1818, St. Philippine Duchesne led a group of five French-speaking Religious of the Sacred Heart (RSCJs) to the New World and started the first free school for girls west of the Mississippi River. Thirty years later in 1848, on Bleecker Street in Manhattan, Mother Aloysia Hardey, RSCJ founded our School, Convent of the Sacred Heart. In 1904, the School moved to Maplehurst in the Bronx, and in 1945 opened at its present location in Greenwich, CT, the former Overlook Farm Estate, to accommodate a growing student body. Since then the School has continued its tradition of educating young women to learn and to lead. We currently enroll approximately 775 girls, and are part of the Network of Schools of the Sacred Heart, all of which are committed to a set of five intellectual and spiritual principles known as the Goals & Criteria of Sacred Heart Schools. Sacred Heart participates in a student exchange program with other Sacred Heart schools in the United States and around the world. The program complements the educational experience at Sacred Heart, Greenwich and allows students to experience, firsthand, the breadth of a Sacred Heart education.

The Society of the Sacred Heart operates Sprout Creek Farm in upstate New York, which once resided on the campus of Sacred Heart, Greenwich. Today, the School continues to use Sprout Creek Farm as an educational center for studying the environment and sends students and faculty there on field trips and retreats.

In 2006, the school opened Stuart Hall, named for the great Sacred Heart educator of the 20th century, Janet Erskine Stuart, RSCJ. The four-level Stuart Hall houses a beautiful Middle School and Library/Media Center, which caters to 21st-century learners with its impressive print and digital collection, including an iPad lending program for the Lower School, in addition to computer labs for the Lower and Middle Schools, the Nora Falk Storytelling Room, and space for the reading specialist. The David Bloom Broadcast Studio, located in Stuart, is named in honor of the late NBC news correspondent, who died while covering the war in Iraq. The Broadcast Journalism Program supports the curriculum at all grade levels and, through Upper School classes, has produced many national and regional award-winning student videos and documentaries.

Accreditation

Convent of the Sacred Heart is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges and is approved by the Connecticut State Board of Education. They are also a member of the National Association of Independent Schools, the College Board, the Connecticut Association of Independent Schools, the National Coalition of Girls’ Schools and the Network of Sacred Heart Schools in the United States.

Admission

Currently, Sacred Heart students come from more than 60 different zip codes in Westchester and Fairfield counties. Sacred Heart is committed to making efforts to increase the socioeconomic and ethnic diversity of the School’s student body. The financial aid Committee is committed to helping families find ways to make an education at Convent of the Sacred Heart affordable and works with them to determine personalized, need-based assistance.Convent of the Sacred Heart challenges each student to take intellectual risks and recognizes the need to give focused attention and support in mathematics, science and technology. Faculty members at Sacred Heart teach with an eye to each girl’s success in School, in the larger community and in life.

Convent of the Sacred Heart seeks highly motivated applicants who are academically prepared and whose talents and intellectual curiosity will enable them to take advantage of the challenging curriculum and rich resources the School offers. The Sacred Heart Admission Committee looks for students whose respect for differences and compassion for others will lead them to make positive contributions to the School community.

Alumnae

References

    External links

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