Academics

At Petra, we seek to honor God in an academic program that recognizes the Lordship of Jesus Christ in all knowledge. As opposed to both vocational or mere adequacy as “college prep,” our goals are to equip students with what Dorothy Sayers called “the tools of learning.” Like the goal articulated by 19th century educator Endicott Peabody, we desire that our graduates are “able to take up successfully any subject owing to [their] early training.”

To this end, our academic program includes classes in language arts (literature in the secondary), mathematics, science, history, and biblical studies. The study of Latin begins in the third grade and continues through the tenth. Formal logic is taught in the eighth and ninth grades and rhetoric in the eleventh and twelfth. Additionally, elective classes in the fine arts are offered as well.

Using the “three-way” methodology of the classical trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric), we desire that our students be well grounded in the fundamentals of the core curriculum, that they reason well, and that they articulate with precision and grace.