Bellarmine Preparatory School

Besides being divided by years, the school is divided into six houses, each named for a famous Catholic figure. This is intended to help students bond outside their grade levels. Most competitive activities at the school are divided by house.

The school competes in the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) as Team 360, The Revolution.[3] Established in 1999, the team has been recognized for the quality of the robots produced and for their commitment to community service.[4] They are the oldest sustaining team in the Pacific Northwest District at 19 years. They have won multiple awards:[5]

• 2016 World Championship Woodie Flowers (Eric Stokely)
• 2016 PNW District Championships Winner
• 2015 Auburn District Competition Winner
• 2012 Autodesk Oregon Regional Winner
• 2011 Autodesk Oregon Regional Winner
• 2011 Microsoft Seattle Cascade Regional Chairman's Award
• 2009 Microsoft Seattle Regional Chairman's Award

In 2013, Bellarmine's Model UN program BellarMUN was created. It attends several conference conferences every year, including PACMUN, CAIMUN, AmeriMUNC and VMUN. BellarMUN also hosts its own middle school conference, BELLARMUN.[6]

Over 70% of the student population competes in at least one athletic activity.[7] It has been named All-Sports Champions by the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association the past four years, winning it for the first time in school history in 2004 with the second highest All-Sports score recorded in state history, and the highest score for a 2A, 3A, or 4A school. In 2004, the men's soccer team won its first state title in school history with an undefeated record of 20-0-2. In 2008, the men's soccer team went on to win its second state title, over Puyallup High School; it was determined by penalty kicks.

Bellarmine excelled in golfing with the men's golf team gathering seven state championships, including four individual champions. The wrestling team has had two state champions. The girls cross country has four state championships as a team and three girls who have combined for 5 individual championships. The boys tennis team has recorded 9 individual/doubles state championships and nine team state championships including a run of four in a row from 2005-2008. The girls soccer team has five state championships to their credit, and the boys have two. The girls volleyball team won their first state championship in school history in 2012, and repeated in 2013. The fast pitch team has one state championship in 1985. The girls tennis team has six team state championships to their name along with four individual titles won in a row by Sonja Olejar from 1989-1992, and four state titles in doubles. The girls golf team has won seven state championships in a row plus three more from 2003-2005 giving them a total of ten along with four individual champions.

Boys' sports offered: Cross country, Basketball, Wrestling, Tennis, Golf, Track and Field, Baseball, Soccer, Lacrosse, and Football.

Girls' sports offered: Volleyball, Cross country, Basketball, Fast pitch, Track and field, Lacrosse, Soccer, Tennis, and Golf.

Bellarmine has a theater program which puts on two shows a year: a fall musical and a spring play, as well as a Dramafest featuring student-written one-act plays.[8][9] In recent years, the department's musical productions have been nominated for several 5th Avenue High School Musical Theatre Awards, with one win in 2014 and two in 2015. The students work in six sub-departments of the theater program: acting, set building, costume, hair, and make-up design, sound design, lighting design, and stage management.

Bellarmine holds a required student body retreat for the freshmen, called "My Place in this World". Freshmen and sophomores are also required to attend Faith in Formation meetings.[11] These generally occur during Community Period (homeroom). The sophomore meetings focus more on volunteer work, including participation in a Habitat for Humanity build or work with L'Arche.

An optional overnight retreat, the Francis Xavier Urban Plunge, is offered in the fall and spring for sophomores. The retreat focuses on "street life" in the Tacoma Area.[12]

The Junior Encounter is an optional three day off-campus retreat during the weekend. Six occur each year, three for men and three for women. The details of the retreat are a tightly-kept secret from underclassmen, and the entire event is generally considered to be a strong bonding experience for the class.

Four retreats are offered to seniors. Senior Pilgrimage is a weekend hike up a mountain. Montserrat is an Ignatian, directed retreat which is made in complete silence for a 24-hour period, and the Manresa is also a silent retreat over a 48-hour period. The Magis is a three-day overnight retreat.[12]

Bellarmine students may also work on crew or team for the Senior Pilgrimage, Magis retreat, and Junior Encounter.[13]

All-school Masses are rare, normally on Ash Wednesday, the last day before Christmas break, and the Feast of Saint Robert Bellarmine. The entire school attends, but active participation is optional. There are also occasional Masses during lunch, and Mass is offered on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays prior to the start of school.[14]

Bellarmine is home to an art program which offers activities such as Design, Crafts, Ceramics, Photography, Sculpture, Drawing, Painting, Printmaking and Theater.[15]

The marine chemistry program is available to students who score sufficiently well on the school entrance examination and opt into doing extra research work to fulfill this requirement. It is a four-year program where students learn the skills needed to do chemical and biological marine research in their first two years, and then apply those skills in their own research projects during their junior and senior years.[16]