St. Teresa's is a Catholic, full-primary school located in the heart of Riccarton providing a well balanced curriculum meeting the spiritual, social, emotional, academic, and physical needs of our children.  Situated beside the Parish church, the school has a close relationship with our Parish Priest, Fr. Ramiel Alvarez.  The Special Character of our school ensures that the teachings of Jesus are valued and respected.  Our staff, students and parent community are expected to reflect these beliefs in their interactions with others.  We follow our St. Teresa's Virtues Programme to support the development of our Special Character.  These Virtues are explicitly taught over a two-year cycle, success is acknowledged regularly in a variety of ways.

St. Teresa's is a warm, welcoming, multi-cultural, decile seven school of 161 students, with 49% of our students being from various ethnic backgrounds.  We cater for international students and are very proud of our ethnic mix and cultural diversity.

The parents take a very active role in the life of the school, which is perceived as having a warm, caring atmosphere with excellent relationships and communications between home and school.

At St. Teresa's there is an emphasis on providing an environment, which is positive, inclusive, safe and welcoming.  We promote our family atmosphere through the involvement of parents, grandparents and caregivers in our class, school and parish Masses.  A number of parents attend our weekly assemblies where we pray together and celebrate our successes.  The Special Character certificate awarded each week acknowledges children who demonstrate the Virtues of St. Teresa's School through their behaviour.

The staff consists of a Principal, a Deputy Principal, a Director of Religious Studies, five teachers, and a reading recovery teacher.  The support staff includes a teacher aide, an ESOL support teacher and an office administrator.

The school consists of 2 blocks with six refurbished, well-resourced, newly furnished classrooms and a superb library.  An office space is currently used for our ESOL lessons.  We have large, open grounds with space for our students to play a variety of sports and games in front of the peaceful backdrop of Riccarton Bush.

The school has developed an Inquiry Learning process to encourage our students to actively engage their minds and bodies as part of their learning.  At St. Teresa's School we want to develop lifelong learners who learn in authentic contexts where we make explicit links between the curriculum areas and the real world.  The Inquiry Learning process incorporates the explicit teaching of a variety of Thinking Skills to enable our students to become analytical thinkers.  We integrate technologies in our programme catering to the needs of children in the digital age.

The Board of Trustees of St. Teresa's School is entrusted to work on behalf of the stakeholders.  It emphasises strategic leadership, ensuring compliance with legal and policy requirements.  The focus of the Board of Trustees is enhancing student achievement.