French immersion makes Holyrood School one of a kind

Nicole Burrows, a proud Franco-Albertan, is in her seventh year as principal of Holyrood Elementary School, one of the more unique schools in the Edmonton public system because of its ever increasing emphasis on French immersion.  

It didn’t start out that way. 

When Holyrood School opened in 1955, it was just one of many schools opening around that time. Edmonton was growing rapidly because of the post-war baby boom and the discovery of oil at Leduc Number 1 in 1947. But it didn’t take long for the school, located in the south-central Edmonton neighbourhood of the same name, to evolve into something different.

Holyrood introduced French immersion and Ukrainian programs in the 1970s to make it a trilingual school. Holyrood dropped the Ukrainian program years ago due to low enrolment and now only offers French immersion and English. And Principal Burrows says within a few years French immersion will be the total focus, with Holyrood likely to be Edmonton Public Schools’ first single track French immersion school in the not too distant future. 

“The French immersion program is so strong that that is what draws students to this school,” she says.

Holyrood school currently has about 450 students, and Burrows says only one fifth of them are in the English program.  

“I think one of the things that is making Holyrood such an awesome school right now is that it brings people with that commonality of wanting to learn the French language and live a bit of the culture,” Burrows says. “Here, it’s brought together a community of people because it’s a program of choice with people who do really want to be here. Some of them do live here right in our Holyrood community. Others call and say, ‘I’ve heard you’re one of the best French immersion schools in the city and I want my child to come here.’ In terms of transportation, we serve about 11 communities surrounding Holyrood school, and I know that the French program is a huge draw.”

Burrows says so great is the draw that people move to the Holyrood neighbourhood especially because of the French immersion school: “We have had families seek out our community for purchasing houses if they are coming from out of province because they want them to attend Holyrood. They’ve done their homework.”

French immersion isn’t the only thing Holyrood elementary is known for. Community spirit is another. For many years, it led all city schools in contributions to the annual CBC Turkey Drive in support of the Edmonton Food Bank. 

Burrows says the cause was embraced by staff, parents and students: “The Food Bank supports vulnerable families whether they’re inner city or clubs or immigrant families, and so by doing that I think our community just feels they’re doing their part to help bring some equity to our world. And we have a lot of families that can, and that have, and so when that’s the case and we all get behind something as important as this the numbers are significant.”

Significant indeed, with the school raising as much as $50,000 some years. By the way, the CBC Turkey Drive has now evolved into something called Make the Season Kind, and Holyrood continues to embrace the campaign in its new form.

Something else that Holyrood School will embrace is the new Valley Line LRT with its stop in the neighbourhood, mainly because of the field trip possibilities.

“I’m just looking at all the amazing things downtown,” Principal Burrows says. “The new public library, the provincial museum is now downtown, the art gallery, Rogers Place, there’s an incredible amount of field trip opportunities that we can bring our students on. And just to be able to hop on the LRT at the station here and go downtown…what an experience for our kids.”