Enrolments are up in the Holy Family Roman Catholic Separate School Division this year.

Director of education Shelley Rowein said there are 1,105 students enrolled in the division, which includes the children in their pre-Kindergarten program. Excluding pre-Kindergarten students, Rowein said the number of registered pupils is 1,066, which is up by 24 from the 2011-12 school year.

The two schools in Estevan continue to have healthy enrolments. Sacred Heart is at 284, while St. Mary's has 217.

"Sacred Heart is up, and St. Mary's is down, and part of the reason for that is we were running both of our pre-Kindergarten programs out of St. Mary's, and we've now moved one to Sacred Heart," said Rowein. "Both Sacred Heart and St. Mary's now have a program, but that does skew the numbers slightly."

A portable will be added to Sacred Heart School, and Rowein hopes it will be finished at Christmas time.

Rowein said it's always nice to see their numbers on the rise.

Holy Family is furthering a continuous improvements framework with their teachers this year. Last year they concentrated on differentiated instruction. They'll continue to focus on that, but they're also stressing assessment this year.

"We're working through the change process with teachers, and we are very, very pleased to see the work that the teachers are doing," said Rowein. "They're using the Understanding by Design (process) in their planning, and they're using differentiated instruction in all the curriculum areas to support student achievement."

The division has also added a First Nations studies program at St. Michael's School in Weyburn. And they continue to offer Christian Ethics courses in high schools with the support of the South East Cornerstone Public School Division.

Holy Family operates schools in Estevan, Weyburn, Radville and Wilcox. This will be the first year in which there will be one Catholic school in Weyburn. Renovations at St. Michael's are finished, and it will operate as a Kindergarten to Grade 9 school; the other Catholic school in Weyburn, St. Dominic Savio School, has closed.