École Varennes is a vibrant French Immersion school with a population of 358 students and a very supportive community of parents. We work hard to promote respect and personal growth within a French-language milieu. École Varennes first opened its doors in September 1951, as Varennes School. We have been a totally French Immersion school since 1984. All classes are taught in French with the exception of English Language Arts. All students engage in regularly scheduled physical education and music classes. Information technology is integrated into all subject areas.
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As a French Immersion school, École Varennes provides a safe and respectful learning environment which facilitates the acquisition of useful knowledge, skills and attitudes essential for responsible citizenship.
To honour, to inspire, to discover.
Long before St. Vital became a village, the area surrounding the school was known as Varennes. Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, also known as La Vérendrye, was the first European to visit the forks of the Red and Assiniboine rivers in 1738. The famous explorer came from the north-eastern village of Varennes, France—the village in which Louis XIV and Marie-Antoinette sought refuge before their beheading in 1791, and a village that was at the centre of the Battle of Argonne during the First World War.
When École Varennes first opened its doors as Varennes School in 1951, it had 235 students in six classrooms with no library, gymnasium, music room, and certainly no computer room.
Nineteen sixty-one marked the peak of its enrolment with 711 students. In 1978, the first French Immersion classes were added, and in 1984 the school became a French-Immersion-only facility.
The beautiful mural on the school's west side was painted by Jill Sellers in 2000 with the help of every student in the school.
École Varennes By The Numbers:
Number of Students: 358*
* Data collected in August 2018