We are a warm and welcoming private school with an exceptional learning environment for preschool to Grade 8 located on the Oak Ridges Moraine in Richmond Hill, Ontario. We offer Reggio-inspired, and IB focused inquiry learning, cultivating deeper thinking, confidence, and world-ready. We are committed to excellence, which resonates through the work of our students and teachers. Our rich and challenging curriculum ensures we deliver a solid academic foundation enhanced by our comprehensive Arts programming.
That children are incredible. They are capable, innovative, and full of potential, and we value them as individuals with unique ways of learning. Our best for your kids. Every day. We provide excellent learning conditions and a supportive community that cultivates deeper thinking, confidence, and world-ready. Because we are passionate. We prepare children to thrive in a world of great possibilities.
Richland is committed to being a leading Reggio inspired IB World School, inspiring, supporting, and nurturing our multi-cultural students to be well- educated, balanced, and empathetic global citizens. Founded in 2002, Richland continues to build upon a solid foundation of academic excellence and rigor combined with a warm, nurturing, and inclusive environment in which all students feel welcomed and valued.
At Richland Academy, our committed faculty facilitate student learning about the world in which we live, helping them become internationally-minded global citizens. Exciting and engaging learning experiences occur in the classroom, on the stage in school musical productions, in the art studio, learning commons, and natural outdoor learning spaces. Our students also learn about the importance of giving and sharing with the broader world through action. We are a professional learning community following a holistic approach to education. We educate the whole person academically, artistically, physically, and socially. No two students or journeys are alike, and we will go out of our way to find and nurture each student's unique abilities. Ultimately, we work together to shape 21 st century leaders who dare to take intellectual risks as they work effectively with others.
The first thing you will notice when you arrive at Richland Academy is that the excitement is tangible. You will feel the energy and sense the vibrancy as soon as you enter the school. You will grasp the wonder of discovery in the classrooms as each student and faculty member engage in authentic critical thinking and learning.
Richland is proud to be an International Baccalaureate® (IB) World School. Founded in 1968, the International Baccalaureate® (IB) is a non-profit educational foundation offering four highly respected international education programs that develop the intellectual, personal, emotional, and social skills needed to live, learn and work in a rapidly globalizing world.
More than 4,000 schools so far have chosen to teach International Baccalaureate® (IB) programs, with their unique academic rigor and their emphasis on students' personal development. Those schools employ over 70,000 educators, teaching more than one million students worldwide.
International Baccalaureate (IB-PYP) programs provide a detailed and developmentally appropriate curriculum or curriculum framework that is broad, balanced, conceptual, and connected. IB programs offer students access to a broad and balanced range of academic studies and learning experiences. They promote conceptual learning, focusing on powerful organizing ideas relevant across subject areas that help integrate learning and add coherence to the curriculum.
The programs emphasize the importance of making connections, exploring the relationships between academic disciplines, and learning about the world in ways that reach beyond individual subjects' scope. They also focus on offering students authentic opportunities to connect their learning to the world around them.
In the Primary Years Programme, learning aims to transcend traditional boundaries between subject areas. Students explore six transdisciplinary themes of global significance:
- who we are
- where we are in place and time
- how we express ourselves
- how the world works
- how we organize ourselves and sharing the planet
The IB learner profile places the student at the center of an IB education. The ten attributes reflect the holistic nature of an IB education. They highlight the importance of nurturing dispositions such as curiosity and compassion and developing knowledge and skills. They also highlight that along with cognitive development, IB programs are concerned with students' social, emotional, and physical well-being and with ensuring that students learn to respect themselves, others, and the world around them. IB educators help students to develop these attributes throughout their IB education and to demonstrate them in increasingly robust and sophisticated ways as they mature. The development of these attributes is the foundation of developing internationally-minded students who can help build a better world.
With most of our students working a year ahead, the Ontario Curriculum Guidelines and Expectations are not merely met. However, they are exceeded and enriched through our progressive approach to learning. To measure our academic excellence, we utilize an external measurement of success. Richland Academy students' attainment is measured annually, through the Canadian Achievement Test (CAT), with student scores typically two years above the National Average.
As a 21st Century learning community and the first private Early Years to Grade 8 school in York Region to embrace the Reggio approach to inquiry learning. Our nurturing community offers a sense of belonging for our students, staff, and families and differentiates us from others. Our child-centered, experiential, and intellectually-stimulating environment fosters life-long learning skills and attitudes, where our students and staff feel connected, capable, and counted in our community. We support every student in developing the mindset, cognitive, and academic skills vital for success by giving them the tools they need to be adaptable and instilling in them the ability and desire to love learning.
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