ABOUT
Where the Love of Learning Takes Root
We believe childhood matters for its own sake. These years are preparing your child for everything that comes next, but they are also happening right now. Children deserve a school that takes their growth seriously without asking them to hurry through childhood.
At St. Nicholas, children are known well enough for teachers to respond to how they learn. Curiosity has room to lead somewhere. Over time, they discover what they can do for themselves, surrounded by adults who know when to guide and when to give them room.
What Do You Want These Years to Give Your Child?
Elementary school is preparing children for what comes next, but these years matter in their own right. The way children experience school now shapes how they come to see learning, other people, and themselves.
Challenge Without Hurry
Children need opportunities to stretch, but growth doesn’t happen on the same timetable for everyone. A child who is ready can move toward the next challenge. When understanding needs more time, there should be room for that, too.
Readiness matters more than rushing.
The Confidence to Try
Confidence grows through experience. Children tackle something difficult, make mistakes, ask for help, and discover that they can keep going. Little by little, they need an adult beside them less often because they have begun to trust themselves.
“I can do this” is something children learn by doing.
A Childhood With Room in It
Children need space for curiosity to lead somewhere. Sometimes that means taking learning outside. Sometimes a question changes the direction of a lesson. There should still be time to move, explore, play, and become absorbed in something simply because it interests them.
School can prepare children for the future without making childhood smaller.
Learning How to Belong
School is one of the first communities children learn to navigate for themselves. They discover how to listen when someone sees the world differently, repair a friendship, contribute to something larger, and recognize the dignity of the people around them.
Belonging gives children a place to practice becoming good neighbors.
Our Story
Growing With Chattanooga Since 1958
St. Nicholas began in 1958 as a small preschool at Grace Episcopal Church. As the school grew, it eventually found a new home in East Brainerd, but the heart of the experience stayed remarkably familiar.
Children are still known well. Relationships still shape the school day. And there is still room for childhood to unfold at its own pace.
Today, that story continues on 24 wooded acres, where trails, gardens, playgrounds, classrooms, and gathering spaces give children room to learn beyond four walls.
Take a Look Around
Explore the 24-acre St. Nicholas campus in Chattanooga’s East Brainerd neighborhood.
Episcopal Identity
An Episcopal School, Open to All
Our Episcopal identity gives St. Nicholas a spiritual center and a way of seeing every child as a person of deep worth. Chapel is part of our daily rhythm, creating space for reflection, gratitude, and shared community.
Families come to St. Nicholas from many different faith traditions and backgrounds. Children learn to listen well, respect difference, serve others, and recognize the dignity in the people around them.
For your child, that means growing in a community where faith shapes how we treat one another.
Belonging here doesn’t depend on everyone believing the same things.
Come See for Yourself
Come See Childhood at St. Nicholas
The best way to understand St. Nicholas is to see what those beliefs look like in the middle of an ordinary school day.
St. Nicholas School admits students of any race, color, gender, national and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, national and ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admission policies, financial aid and other school-administered programs.