Director’s Message

A TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY SCHOOL

At Académie de la Capitale (AcadeCap), we believe that education needs to be grounded in evidenced practice, while nonetheless accounting for forward thinking and change.

The first thing you’re likely to notice when stepping into our locale is the newly designed and well-equipped STEM Maker Lab. Then, as you reach the second level, you will see the open-concept layout, along with an impressive array of student work, both framed and in progress, covering almost all available wall space. Designed to foster interaction between students of different ages, grades, and abilities, AcadeCap functions like a creative, cutting-edge work hub with focus and collaborate spaces, rather than the traditional amalgam of distinct classrooms. Correspondingly, students aren’t arranged with the notion of static classrooms in mind, but grouped into small, focused workgroups which emphasize collaborative skill sets, participation, and teacher interaction, in tandem with the integration of our rigorous syllabus.

To structure the AcadeCap syllabus at the elementary, we’ve combined the age-banded stages of the Ontario Ministry of Education, with the developmental phases of the International Baccalaureate (IB©) Primary Years and Middle Years Programmes. This combination takes any preconceived limitations away from the scope and depth of students’ learning. The result is a constantly motivated and challenged student body. It’s an approach that requires not only teachers, but also specialists and ultimately mentors, to function.

At the secondary level, the Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD) Grade 9 and Grade 10 overlap with Year 4 and Year 5 of the IB MYP. In Grades 11 and 12, our students continue on with the OSSD curriculum recognized by universities around the world. Our students are prepped with extensive knowledge, and various skill sets, including well-developed higher order thinking skills, to achieve academic success and admission to post-secondary programmes of choice.

Our teachers are not only selected for both their professionalism and experience, but also for their drive to learn and to share their passion. They are often specialists, having masters and doctorate degrees, in the subject they teach. And most importantly, it is what their students can do with what they know that make AcadeCap teachers, such remarkable teachers. They empower our students.

As such, the AcadeCap student is unlike any other. He or she not only develops the ability to think and to question critically, ethically, and divergently, but also the ability to create, design and build. It is our aim to develop academically successful students, who also have the gumption to take risks, to innovate, and to tackle the unknown: a courage born of experience acquired from being challenged, creating and succeeding at AcadeCap.
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Lucie Lalonde 

Founding Director, Académie de la Capitale (AcadeCap)