Wishing Well Schools

Wishing Well Schools is a private school for children aged 18 months to Grade 8. Our Toddler and Children's House programs follow the Montessori curriculum, while the Elementary program follows the Ontario Curriculum in an enriched learning environment. We firmly believe that collaboration, creativity, innovation, and curiosity are the keys to learning, and Wishing Well Schools aims to create an environment where these skills flourish.
Wishing Well Schools, located in Markham, Ontario, offers the most pleasing Montessori Toddler, Montessori Children's House, and enriched Ontario Curriculum Elementary programs available.
The Wishing Well Schools Toddler program (ages 18 to 30 months) is a CCMA accredited program which follows the Montessori philosophy and is carefully prepared, ensuring children feel safe and have a sense of belonging and independence. A Montessori teacher and Early Childhood Educator's role is to guide, nurture, discipline, and facilitate children as they grow and learn, developing at his or her own pace. Our Toddler children follow a calm and carefully considered daily routine developing in all areas of independence, ability, and confidence.
The Wishing Well Schools Children's House program is CCMA accredited, and two fully qualified Montessori teachers are in each classroom. Mixed-age classrooms are an essential factor of the Montessori curriculum, and our 1st, second and 3rd Year Children's House students learn together with two fully qualified Montessori teachers in each classroom. To prepare them for Grade 1, we focus on an enriched learning environment that integrates the Montessori philosophy with academic advancement and achievement. Our 3rd-year Children's House students enter Grade 1 having already completed the Grade 1 program, which is why we begin our Elementary program one Year ahead in an accelerated learning environment. French, gym, art, STEAM, and music are all integrated into the Children's House program.
Finally, the Wishing Well Schools Elementary Program is one of the finest available, as evidenced in our CAT4 and EQAO scores, as well as in the achievement of our students who go on to advanced AP programs and IB programs at secondary schools across the city. We teach an accelerated curriculum where students learn one Year ahead in an enriched environment. While we believe that academic excellence is an essential factor in every child's success, the key to a full education lies in nurturing all areas of a child's development, including global awareness, citizenship, athletics, and creative ability.
Our Wishing Well Schools CCMA Accredited Montessori Toddler community offers children 18 months of age opportunities to explore their independence and connection to the world using their extraordinary capacity for learning. The program allows the children to develop oral communication skills, independence, and problem-solving. In addition to the Montessori curriculum, students have weekly STEAM lessons, baking and cooking lessons, Yoga, and an extensive after-school arts program that focuses on visual arts, singing, dancing, and expression.
In this caring, respectful community, Toddlers learn the development of order, concentration, and movement control while developing responsible group awareness. Our Toddlers are terrific, and we love to see them grow and learn. Our Mission: Our focus is to provide students with a stimulating and academically challenging education that is deeply committed to the Montessori principles so that they may reach their full potential with integrity and trust.
At the Wishing Well Schools Children's House, each child develops at his or her own pace in the prepared Montessori Environment with specially designed Montessori materials. Our students engage in a mixed-age learning environment with two fully qualified Montessori Teachers in each class. Wishing Well Schools is CCMA Accredited, so you know you will be providing your child with the highest quality of Montessori education available.
Activities cover all aspects of child development, intellectual, physical, and social. Each activity is complete in itself, and activities are inter-related. We provide the students with achievable challenges throughout their time at the school so that self-esteem is nurtured and encouraged to even greater exploration and learning.
Young children have a strong urge to become independent. Practical Life activities help them to perfect the skills they need in daily life. While learning essential life skills, the children are also developing hand-eye coordination and the capacity to focus their attention on an activity's entirety. Successful completion of such tasks gives children a real sense of their achievement, building their self-confidence.
Children are vividly aware of the world, continually exploring it and taking impressions through all their senses. The sensorial materials encourage children to order and classify the physical properties of the world they live in. These activities stimulate and develop the senses, refining children's powers of observation, perception, exploration, and communication.
Montessori mathematics materials enable even a very young child to achieve a natural appreciation of mathematical concepts through their efforts. This avoids the mental blocks, which so often occur in children faced with purely abstract concepts. Specially designed equipment helps children grasp concrete ideas and sensory experience of numbers, quantities, and mathematical operations. Gradually children can move confidently to complete abstract mathematical problems. Many Montessori educated children leave the Children's House with a genuine love of numbers and mathematics.
In the Children's House, children learn to express themselves. The freedom offered to the children creates many opportunities for them to communicate with their peers and adults. We emphasize vocabulary development based on real experiences and the early preparation required for reading and writing. Advanced activities take the child well beyond the necessary skills to read and write for interpretation, creativity, and pleasure.
The Montessori approach covers a wide range of subjects which reflect the broad interests of young children. The Montessori environment stimulates these interests and extends knowledge and understanding of art and crafts, geography, history, music and science, and the natural world. Cultures from around the world are explored and celebrated.
Wishing Well Elementary School is committed to individual student achievement with a strong culture of high standards and expectations. We provide a quality, enriched learning environment where students are taught one grade level ahead of the Ontario Curriculum guidelines. Your child will achieve an enriched education that surpasses the Ontario Ministry of Education standards as proven by our CAT 4 and EQAO standardized testing results.
We use the tools of education imperative to success in the 21st century. Every classroom is equipped with various technological devices, such as interactive whiteboards and apple tests, Chromebooks, iPads, and stimulating lessons, using this technology at all grade levels. We integrate technology to enhance further research, writing, creativity, and critical thinking in Grades 1 to 3. All students in Grades 4 to 8 receive a school iPad to use interactively during lessons and homework tasks for the school year. The 1 to 1 iPad program has successfully engaged children in group work, presentations, research, film creation and analysis, and collaborative project-based assignments. We teach coding to our students from Grade 1 to Grade 8 and Design Thinking and Computer Science to our Grade 7 and 8 students.
Our STEAM curriculum is one of our student's favorite subjects. We have integrated a STEAM Fair into our yearly academic celebrations, alongside our Arts Festival, Winter Pageant, and Speech Arts competition.
After school clubs and activities are an essential part of Wishing Well Elementary. Clubs are run every night and include various sports clubs, media clubs, performance art clubs, and language clubs. A nightly homework room is provided and supervised by teachers until 6:00 p.m. We take our students skiing for six sessions in the winter months from Grade 1 to 8, and this has been a tradition for over 30 years.
Wishing Well Elementary is an environment that is both stimulating and challenging for our students. They graduate with a sense of citizenship, the academic skills to enter competitive and specialized programs in Secondary School, and a profound joy for learning that carries them through their academic career and beyond.