About Us
In our efforts to meet the diversified needs of our students at St. Timothy Catholic Elementary School, we acknowledge and rejoice in cultural diversity. Commonality is found by focusing on our Catholic beliefs, common roots, and common values. As each child is unique and brings a variety of different experiences to the classroom, activities presented to the students also reflect the differences and needs of all in order to unify and promote common growth.
The notion of our Christian families is another unifying force. The real life application of how we live these Christian values in our families is used to enhance the growth in our community.
As teachers, we take the role of initiating the welcoming and gathering of our students while promoting that a common standard of behaviour is internalized and understood. This will subsequently help to ensure the safety of all students. From the start, we observe and work towards common concepts and establish routines focusing on the individual learner and the various patterns of learning. We further the goal of establishing common learning by extending and deepening the concepts learned.
With the enhancement of technology, we also focus on applying and sharing knowledge and skills through a variety of techniques: modification, simplification, and restatement in various methods in order to reach a common understanding.
School History And Tradition
St. Timothy Catholic Elementary School is located in the historic Henry Farm community of Don Mills. Henry Farm was settled in 1806 by Henry Mulholland, a native of Clones, County Monaghan, Ireland. Mulholland later sold the farm, but his great-grandson George Stewart Henry reacquired it in 1898. Henry was the tenth Premier of Ontario from 1930 to 1934. Ten days before his death in 1958, Henry sold his farm for two million dollars to the developers of the present-day neighborhood. Henry's house, called “Oriole Lodge”, still stands as a private residence at 17 Manorpark Court, located just around the corner from the present-day St. Timothy School.
Henry Farm was developed into a housing subdivision in the 1960s. Today, most of the Henry Farm neighborhood is low-density suburban housing. The neighborhood is bordered by townhouse developments which are now primarily social housing. There are also two high-rise apartment buildings, Havenbrook Towers, at the southeast corner of this community, and numerous other high-rise buildings within close proximity to the original Henry Farm neighborhood.
St. Timothy Catholic Elementary School first opened its doors in 1964. The original enrolment was 172 students as the new school competed with the many of the smaller schools in the vicinity. Over the next few years; however, the school experienced significant growth - enough to warrant and expansive addition that was built in 1970 to accommodate the increase in student population, which then stood at over 600.
The first graduating class of 1965 consisted of 13 Grade 8 students. At that time, the school was under the charge of St. Timothy’s first Principal, Mr. Tony Reffle. He officially retired from the school board in 2003. The student enrolment holds consistent around 600.
In 2003, the original St. Timothy school building was knocked down and construction began on the new school. The new school was constructed and re-opened in September 2004, revealing a brand-new state-of-the-art school facility, large enough to house the entire St. Timothy school population without the need for multiple portables.
The new school building was re-constructed on the expansive, rolling hillside of the original school, looking southwest over the Toronto cityscape. St. Timothy Catholic Elementary School is very proud of its strong relationship to the St. Timothy Parish, located directly to the northeast of the schoolyard. Sacramental preparation is carried out in conjunction with home, school, and church. Members of the St. Timothy clergy are well-known to our student and parent community.