Abelard is a small school with a huge ambition: to instruct and inspire our students to be the intellectual leaders of the future. Students who enter Abelard benefit from an enriched, integrated curriculum taught by gifted high school teachers who are also specialists associated with various universities. Students who graduate from Abelard are ready to enter a world of unlimited possibility.
The Abelard School was founded in 1997 by a group of teachers. We started the school because we love to teach, are passionate about our disciplines, and wish to be in an environment in which the acquisition of knowledge is transformative. We want the world to be a better place, and we think that by giving our students an excellent education we are not only handing them the tools to construct that world but inspiring them to do so.
Abelard is a school that values the life of the mind, which fosters a love of knowledge and which feeds the innate curiosity of our students. It is academically rigorous: we want to train the best-educated new thinkers of a generation. But Abelard is a place in which this training is a joyful exercise. As teachers, we are completely invested in our students. Our first goal is to provide them with the type of education that will motivate and guide them throughout their lives.
The focus of our program spanning grades 9 to 12 is to ensure that our students graduate as astute critical thinkers, ready to enter and succeed in the university program of their choice. In addition to encouraging high academic achievement, we strive to ensure that our students do not limit their future choices: our individualized course selection process ensures that they profit from the breadth of our curriculum each year.
Our unique, integrated curriculum and small class sizes provide our students with an unparalleled opportunity to realize their educational goals. Our senior courses are designed as preparation for the Advanced Placement examinations, on which our students have consistently achieved top scores.
With our prime location in downtown Toronto at the corner of College and St. George Street, we take full advantage of the many learning opportunities outside of the classroom with field trips to the museums and galleries, the theater, opera, and ballet, to films and readings, and lectures at the neighboring University of Toronto.
The Abelard School offers a coherent and integrated four-year program leading to the Ontario Secondary School Diploma. All of our courses are taught at an enriched level and prepare our students to successfully take the Advanced Placement (AP) exams in Grades 11 and 12.
Central to our curriculum is its integration. We believe that students should not specialize in high school and that the key to being a well-rounded, successful, and happy individual is a well-rounded education. By the completion of Grade 12, our students will have studied the sciences, mathematics, literature, history, philosophy, and political ideologies of each of the following periods: the Ancient World, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and Reformation, the Age of Reason, the Era of Revolutions, and the Contemporary World.
The Abelard School is a registered Advanced Placement testing center, and students from our school and many other schools across the GTA write the AP examinations at Abelard each spring. A growing number of parents have been inquiring about a middle school program at Abelard. We are responding to this interest because we believe we are uniquely positioned to offer an enriched, exciting, and challenging curriculum and school experience for students in grades 7 and 8. We have found over the years that many students applying to Abelard from Grade 8 don't yet have the requisite knowledge and skills to make a smooth transition into an academically advanced high school curriculum. By welcoming middle school students at Abelard, we can tailor their education to ensure their ongoing success.
In our middle school program, we cultivate a passion for learning. At Abelard, this means that we tackle big ideas and big problems in an age-appropriate manner so that students learn to approach the world around them with an open mind. In addition to the knowledge and skills developed by our enriched curriculum, we teach students to be reflective thinkers, caring and principled global citizens, and bold communicators. We elevate and inspire our students.
We've been preparing students to be successful in university for twenty years, now we wish to prepare them for success in high school. At the high school level, we've developed a unique integrated curriculum that stresses the interconnection of academic disciplines. Our exciting middle school program is designed to introduce young scholars to the symbiotic way that ideas overlap in the real world, preparing middle schoolers with the cultural and historical background necessary to flourish in high school.
Further, we've learned over the years that students learn best when they can contextualize the concepts they are being taught. All students, but particularly middle school students, benefit from some hands-on, activity-based learning to augment classroom instruction. Our middle school program is augmented by interdisciplinary workshops led by our teachers or visiting specialists.
