History & Tradition

Cardinal Léger Catholic School was established in September 1988 at St. Malachy Catholic School, with which it shared facilities for its initial year. The new building was completed in 1989 and our excited school community took possession in September, 1989. Enrollment grew from 400 its first year to its current numbers.

The new building is a unique design, having a large atrium as a centre for the school. A child care centre is a vital part of the building and it provides a much needed day care for children in the community.

The school is named after Paul-Emile Cardinal Léger of Montreal. His life served as a great role model for our students. He lead a life of service to others, particularly in his profession as teacher, priest, servant for the poor and missionary. He was a great Canadian whose life work was to educate, to help those in poverty and those physically disabled by disease and to bring people closer to God. For all these reasons Paul-Emile Cardinal Léger remains an excellent role model for us as Catholics and Canadian citizens in a multicultural society.

The school has close ties to our parish, St. Joseph's of Highland Creek. The parish is staffed by Irish Spiritan fathers and represents a wide diversity of ethnic backgrounds in our community.

Cardinal Léger School strives, within the Toronto Catholic District Separate School Board community to develop its students spiritually, academically, athletically and aesthetically. The staff work closely with parents, priests and students to achieve these goals.

How Do We Meet The Diverse Needs Of Our Students?

In addition to the regular subjects taught, our school provides:
• Physical and health education
• Library studies in our school library
• Computer lab studies in our school library
• Individual computer programming in each classroom
• Vocal music (an itinerant teacher) junior kindergarten to grade 6
• Instrumental music grade 7-8
• French as a second language grade 1-8
• Special education for those in need grade 1-8
• Gifted education (weekly program) at St. Rose of Lima Catholic School

Our teachers often modify the curriculum to meet individual needs. They meet with other staff and resource personnel to support student learning and foster success. As well as meeting academic needs we also seek to develop the student in the area of athletics and the arts, all of which is within our Catholic school environment. We have regular house league sports at recesses for all children to participate for good fun and friendly competition. Our school teams in track and field, softball, soccer, volleyball and basketball continue to perform well in local and regional competition. Cardinal Léger Catholic School is known as one of the greatest sports schools in the city. Each year we dedicate our time and energy to raise money for the Terry Fox Foundation by staging a school wide Terry Fox run. Since 1990, the school has raised a total of $308,506.31 in support of Cancer Research.

In the arts, we have presented a play of the life of Cardinal Léger, a passion play every Easter, Christmas concerts, spring concerts and talent show at the fun fair. We also have a primary/junior choir, a chess team and W5H teams. Our staff has been most generous with their time to coach, direct and supervise these various activities.