4258 Bloor Street West, Etobicoke, Ontario, M9C 1Z7, Canada
18 Coldwater Road, Toronto, Ontario, M3B 1Y7, Canada
2020
1995
40
1075
JK to 8
Nursery/Toddler to 6
Coed
Coed
Day
Day
English, Polish
English
Academic
Academic
Traditional
Montessori
8 to 16
Varies
In-class adaptations
$12,900
$12,500 to $20,000
No
No
0%
0%
None
None
$0
$0
4
98
0%
0%
0%
100%
Nursery/Toddler, Preschool, JK, SK, K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Rolling
Rolling
Not available
Not available
No
Yes: grades Nursery/Toddler - 6
No
No
information not available
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When it opened in 2020, Quo Vadis at a stroke added a new dimension to the educational mosaic in Toronto, particularly around language instruction. It’s the first to offer an intensive bilingual Polish-English program at the elementary level. Bilingual, in their meaning, is as good as it gets, namely a Polish and an English teacher together, at all times, in every classroom. The language curriculum based on that used in schools in Poland. The cultural piece is here too, widening the students’ perspective on the Polish community in Toronto, Canada, and around the world. The school is itself an expression of that community, founded to meet the needs of parents who were looking for a student-oriented school, one that would start at the early grades and continue adding grades as they grow. Quo Vadis checks those boxes and then some. Academics are rigorous, and delivered through a Catholic lens.
View full reportSince it was founded in 1995, CMS has grown to include five locations in the GTA. The program is founded on the core ideals that Maria Montessori promoted in her work, those of respect, community, purposeful engagement, and self-directed learning. That said, Montessori didn't create her program as a museum piece, but rather as a starting point, and that's a spirit that CMS upholds as well. Dr. Montessori, as has been said, "adjusted and adapted her educational system to better serve children's needs, and well-functioning Montessori classrooms typically share many features reflecting those adjustments." One of which was, of course, a willingness to adjust and adapt. As such, the CMS program includes, as at the Maplehurst location, a computer lab, a library, and a music room. In all, the focus is very clearly on the child, and supporting child development, which is just as it should be.
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"the Montessori method has, in our opinion allowed a deeper understanding of the material that is taught."
Rizwan Suleiman - Parent (Mar 15, 2021)
When enrolling our kids to a private school, we chose the Montessori method of teaching because it r...
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"The practical life aspect of the curriculum was insightful as this was not what I had experienced as a child."
G Mok - Parent (May 03, 2021)
We've been with CMS since 2015, and we can tell that our kids enjoy going to school as they come bac...
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"It is nice to see teachers help kids to develop interest."
Terry Smith - Parent (Dec 10, 2021)
My kid started in this school (different campuses) when she was two. Now she is in grade 6.
When sh...
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"Quo Vadis Elementary School is a one-of-a-kind independent Catholic day school offering a fully bilingual Polish-English academic program for Kindergarten through Grade 8. We are currently accepting students to JK through Grade 5. Quo Vadis provides a well-balanced education at a high academic level combined with the teaching of Polish language and culture, and Catholic values in an environment that will help and encourage each student to develop to his or her full potential."
"For over 25 years, CMS has focused on engaging students and building strong foundations during the most formative years of their lives. We provide quality Montessori education at every stage of a child's development. Our renowned Toddler & Casa programs nurture and encourage the inquisitive minds of children to build the foundational skills needed for future success. As children move through our Casa Program, the emphasis gradually shifts from basic motor skills and language to the development of concentration, coordination, independence, and a sense of order. This allows the child to consolidate their writing, reading, and math skills. Our Elementary program offers an enriched curriculum that promotes analytical and collaborative thinking while nurturing individual strengths. We exceed the Ministry of Education curriculum by introducing hands-on material, facilitating a deep understanding of all learning. Physical education, French, music, art, computers, STEM, and a variety of extracurricular activities enrich the learning experience for CMS students. We are a CCMA-accredited school highlighted for teaching excellence and offering quality Montessori education."
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"Our school is truly a caring school. Staff are loyal to the organization and stay for more than 10 years using their expertise and love of all things Montessori to guide the children's learning. The level of creativity is also an additional richness with weekly themed lessons and assemblies and an awareness of so many topics and ideas that young people should come to know such as World Children's day, Indigenous month and an understanding of of many diverse religious festivals."
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"Our families and our graduates report the importance of having learned independence and creativity after their time at CMS. They speak volumes at the annual alumni panel about the compassionate teachers who empowered them to succeed no matter what they were facing, more so during the pandemic when lessons continued uninterrupted for the entire day and even additional lessons of health and gym and art complemented their learning at home. We are a community of individuals who nurture children."
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"Parents often think of CMS as a family. We work hard on building relationships with families and staff, building these strong bonds and helped with Alumni events, and graduate students often come back to visit or complete their volunteer hours at the school. It is wonderful how everyone keeps in touch and how we all work collectively for a great educational experience for our students."
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"You get more bang for your buck at CMS. An intimate setting where you have highly qualified professionals who go out of their way to enrich the lives of children. The quality of the hot lunches, the size of the classrooms and their versatility of use, the integretaed STEM lessons, the diversity of the students and strong mentoring and wellbeing program are all aspects of the CMS experience parents appreciate after they have attended our school for a short while."
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"Parents have answered the question in this way:
We have loved the multiage classrooms where older students truly mentor the younger ones
We have loved the French Immersion experience from Casa to lower and then upper elementary
Our two boys attended CMS and are very successful and stand out at their current school for their ability to be independent and think outside the box.
CMS is a family, everyone cares about the wellbeing of the children first and foremost and the academics complement this."
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"At our Maplehurst Campus we have now added Middle School, with the campus going up to Grade 8. This was largely in part from parents wanting to continue on at CMS. We are very excited to be growing our school and look forward to the upcoming years to see how our Middle School will flourish!"
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Maria Montessori developed a unique method of education to inspire a child's love for life-long learning. CMS provides a stable and nurturing environment to the support the child through this journey in education. Our program engages the child and ensures they have a strong educational foundation.
Montessori
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Traditional curricula tend to be very content-based and rooted in the core disciplines. It is a structured approach that involves the teacher delivering a unified curriculum through direct instruction. Students usually learn by observing and listening to their teacher, studying facts and concepts in textbooks, and completing both tests and written assignments - which challenge students to not only demonstrate their mastery of content but their ability to analyze and deconstruct it critically. Class discussions are also used to create critical dialogue around the content of the curriculum.
Particularly popular in the younger grades (preschool to elementary), but sometimes available all the way up to high school, Montessori schools offer an alternative vision to the standard lesson format of most classrooms. Instead of listening to whole-class lessons, Montessori classrooms allow students to choose which "tasks" or activities interest them. These tasks centre around special Montessori puzzles - their essential feature being they contain a right answer and allow for selfcorrection. A strong emphasis is therefore placed on lessons being concrete and rooted in practical experience, along with students developing a sense of self-sufficiency, confidence and curiosity.
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Our schools’ aim is to prepare children to reach their full potential and to play a responsible role in protecting the global environment and fostering peace and harmony with natural processes and community interests. CMS endeavors to provide quality education in a safe, diverse, nurturing and creative environment that helps the development of the whole child. Our mission ensures that the child is academically motivated, artistically creative, physically active and emotionally supported.
Discovery Math
Traditional Math typically teaches a method or algorithm FIRST, and THEN teaches the applications for the method. Traditional algorithms are emphasized and practiced regularly: repetition and drills are frequently used to ensure foundational mastery in the underlying mathematical procedures. The traditional approach to math views math education as akin to building a logical edifice: each brick depends on the support of the previously laid ones, which represent mastery over a particular procedure or method. Traditional Math begins by giving students a tool, and then challenges students to practice using that tool an applied way, with progressively challenging problems. In this sense Traditional Math aims to establish procedural understanding before conceptual and applied understanding.
Discovery Math turns traditional math on its head: it frequently begins by introducing a novel problem to students, and works its way back to “discovering” a method of solving the problem. The goal is to ground mathematical procedures and algorithms firmly in their applications, and to challenge students to think critically about how they might go about solving the problem right from the beginning. Generally associated with the “Chicago Math” movement and related Everyday Math textbooks (Grades 1 to 6), Discovery math spends less classroom time mastering established algorithms and more time getting students invested in and thinking critically about novel mathematical problems and concepts. In this sense Discovery Math aims to establish conceptual and applied understand before procedural understanding.
Montessori based use of materials to enable each of the learners to kinesthetically access the curriculum. Whilst the provincial curriculum is also followed students are able to surpass their grade level expectations with the multi age support available in the class.
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Phonics-intensive
Systematic-phonics programs teach young children to read by helping them to recognize and sound out the letters and syllables of words. Students are then led to blend these sounds together to sound out and recognize the whole word. While other reading programs might touch on phonetics (either incidentally or on a “when needed” basis), systematic phonics teaches phonics in a specific sequence, and uses extensive repetition and direct instruction to help readers associate specific letter patterns with their associated sounds.
Systematic-phonics programs teach young children to read by helping them to recognize and sound out the letters and syllables of words. Students are then led to blend these sounds together to sound out and recognize the whole word. While other reading programs might touch on phonetics (either incidentally or on a “when needed” basis), systematic phonics teaches phonics in a specific sequence, and uses extensive repetition and direct instruction to help readers associate specific letter patterns with their associated sounds.
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Equal balance
Programs that balance systematic and process approaches equally likely have an emphasis on giving young students ample opportunities to write, while providing supplementary class-wide instruction in grammar, parts of sentences, and various writing strategies.
Programs that balance systematic and process approaches equally likely have an emphasis on giving young students ample opportunities to write, while providing supplementary class-wide instruction in grammar, parts of sentences, and various writing strategies.
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Inquiry
Science programs that balance expository and inquiry learning equally will likely have an equal blend of tests and experiments; direct, textbook-based instruction and student-centred projects.
Inquiry-based science emphasizes teaching science as a way of thinking or practice, and therefore tries to get students “doing” science as much as possible -- and not just “learning” it. Students still learn foundational scientific ideas and content (and build on this knowledge progressively); however, relative to expository science instruction, inquiry-based programs have students spend more time developing and executing their own experiments (empirical and theoretical). Students are frequently challenged to develop critical and scientific-thinking skills by developing their own well-reasoned hypothesis and finding ways to test those hypotheses. Projects and experiments are emphasized over textbook learning. Skills are emphasized over breadth of knowledge.
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Evolution as consensus theory
Evolution as one of many equally viable theories
Evolution is not taught
Evolution as consensus theory
Evolution as one of many equally viable theories
Evolution is not taught
Zoology
Equal Balance
These literature programs draw in equal measure from “Traditional” and “Social Justice” programs.
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Ancient lit
English lit
World (non-Western) lit
European (continental) lit
American lit
Canadian lit
Ancient lit
English lit
World (non-Western) lit
European (continental) lit
American lit
Canadian lit
Expanding Communities
The Thematic approach organizes the curriculum around certain themes or cultural universals. Students might spend time focused on food. Then they might focus on transportation or government, and so on.
The Expanding Communities approach organizes the curriculum around students’ present, everyday experience. In the younger grades, students might learn about themselves, for example. As they move through the grades, the focus gradually broadens in scope: to the family, neighbourhood, city, province, country, and globe. The curriculum tends to have less focus on history than Core Knowledge programs.
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The communicative method of language acquisition emphasizes the use of the target language in authentic contexts. The approach commonly features interactive group work, games, authentic texts, and opportunities to learn about the cultural background of the language. Drills and quizzes may still be used, but less frequently than with the audio-lingual method.
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Hebrew
ESL
Spanish
Russian
Latin
Japanese
Italian
Greek
German
French
Chinese-Mandarin
Chinese-Cantonese
Hebrew
ESL
Spanish
Russian
Latin
Japanese
Italian
Greek
German
French
Chinese-Mandarin
Chinese-Cantonese
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Creative
These programs have an equal emphasis on receptive and creative learning.
Creative arts programs are studio-driven. While historical works and movements may still be taught to add context to the program, students mainly engage in making art (visual, musical, theatrical, etc). The goal is use the actual practice of art to help educate students’ emotions, cognition, and ethos.
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Acting
Dance
Drama/Theatre
Graphic Design
Music
Visual Arts
Acting
Dance
Drama/Theatre
Graphic Design
Music
Visual Arts
Light integration
Computers are used in the classroom from time to time, but integrating technology into everything students do is not a dominant focus. Digital literacy is understood to be a legitimate skill in the 21st century, but not one that should distract from teaching the subject at hand, or more fundamental skills and literacies. The idea is today’s students, being “digital natives”, are likely exposed to computers and new media enough outside the classroom: the role of the school, rather, should be to develop competencies that may otherwise get missed.
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Web design
Robotics
Computer science
Web design
Robotics
Computer science
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Montessori
Academic-based preschools and Kindergartens are the most structured of the different types, and have a strong emphasis on math and reading readiness skills. These programs aim to expose children to what early-elementary school is like. While time is still allotted to free play, much of the day is built around explicit lessons guided by the teacher. Classrooms often resemble play-based ones (with different stations set up around the room), but at an Academic program the teacher leads students through the stations directly, and ties these activities to a whole-class lesson or theme.
Montessori programs aimed at preschool and Kindergarten- aged children allow young learners to choose which “tasks” or activities interest them. These tasks centre around special Montessori puzzles -- the essential features of these puzzles being they contain a “right answer” and allow for self-correction. A strong emphasis is therefore placed on learning being concrete and rooted in practical experience, along with children developing a sense of self-sufficiency and confidence. Specially trained teachers act as guides, introducing children to progressively more difficult materials when appropriate. A Montessori classroom is typically very calm and orderly, with children working alone or, sometimes, in small groups.
If you want to learn more about Montessori education, check out our comprehensive guide. You can also check out our guide to Montessori preschools, elementary schools, middle schools, and high schools.
We follow a Montessori Educational Philosophy based on the belief that a child learns best within a social environment that supports and nurtures each individual's unique developmental pattern. We follow the child's natural curiosity and desire to learn and provide an environment, materials and experiences to help each child reach their full potential. Children are free to challenge themselves at their own pace allowing them to build confidence and independence. All our classrooms are equipped with Montessori resources and our staff are Montessori trained. the casa program is also supplemented with additional specialist lessons of French, Art, Music and Physical education.
Standard-enriched
The main curriculum accelerates beyond the pace of the provincial one; ALL students do the work of OLDER public-school peers in tangible and measurable ways. This accelerated pace is maintained by the teachers and school, (through textbook selection, topic selection, grading, assignment standards and expectations, etc).
Broadly-speaking, the main curriculum -- like that of most schools -- paces the provincially-outlined one. This pace is steady and set by the teachers and school. The curriculum might still be enriched in various ways: covering topics more in-depth and with more vigor than the provincial one, or covering a broader selection of topics.
Our students work at their own pace and level allowing them to excel in many areas of the Ontario Curriculum. We use the Montessori's hands-on, inquiry based methodology for teaching, therefore our students tend to cover
Supportive
A school with a “rigorous” academic culture places a high value on academic performance, and expects their students to do the same. This does not mean the school is uncaring, unsupportive, or non-responsive -- far from it. A school can have a rigorous academic culture and still provide excellent individual support. It does mean, however, the school places a particular emphasis on performance -- seeking the best students and challenging them to the fullest extent -- relative to a normal baseline. High expectations and standards – and a challenging yet rewarding curriculum – are the common themes here. Keep in mind this classification is more relevant for the older grades: few Kindergarten classrooms, for example, would be called “rigorous”.
A school with a “supportive” academic culture focuses more on process than short-term outcomes: academic performance is a welcomed side-benefit, but not the driving focus. This does not mean the school lacks standards, or has low expectations for its students: a school can have a supportive academic culture and still light the fire of ambition in its students. It does mean, however, the school provides a less intensive culture than schools with a “rigorous” academic classification, and is focused more simply on instilling a love of learning and life-long curiosity.
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Balanced
Equal emphasis is placed on a balance of priorities: intellectual, emotional, social and physical cultivation.
Balanced
Equal emphasis is placed on a balance of priorities: intellectual, emotional, social and physical cultivation.
Intellectual
The goal is to cultivate "academically strong, creative and critical thinkers, capable of exercising rationality, apprehending truth, and making aesthetic distinctions."
We empower our students to become well rounded individuals who have the skills and confidence to excel in all areas life. We strive to provide a nurturing environment where children are intellectually motivated, artistically creative and academically challenged. We value confidence and leadership skills and endeavour to develop these skills from a young age by allowing students to collaborate and communicate their ideas as valuable members of their classroom community .
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Badminton |
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Fencing |
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Field Hockey |
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Figure Skating |
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Football |
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Golf |
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Gymnastics |
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Ice Hockey |
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Ice Skating |
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Lacrosse |
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Martial Arts |
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Mountain biking |
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Racquet Ball |
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Rowing |
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Rugby |
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Running |
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Sailing |
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Skateboarding |
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Snowboarding |
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Soccer |
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Softball |
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Squash |
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Swimming |
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Tennis |
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Track & Field |
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Volleyball |
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Weightlifting |
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Wrestling |
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Archery |
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Curling |
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Ultimate |
Ballet and Classical Ballet
Yoga
Yearbook
Student Council
Scouting
Science Club
School newspaper
Round Square
Robotics club
Radio club
Poetry/Literature club
Photography
Paintball
Outdoor Education
Outdoor Club
Online Magazine
Musical theatre/Opera
Math Club
Jazz Ensemble
Habitat for Humanity
Foreign Language Club
Environmental Club
Drama Club
Debate Club
Dance Club
Computer Club
Community Service
Choir
Chess Club
Band
Audiovisual Club
Astronomy Club
Art Club
Animation
Ballet and Classical Ballet
Yoga
Yearbook
Student Council
Scouting
Science Club
School newspaper
Round Square
Robotics club
Radio club
Poetry/Literature club
Photography
Paintball
Outdoor Education
Outdoor Club
Online Magazine
Musical theatre/Opera
Math Club
Jazz Ensemble
Habitat for Humanity
Foreign Language Club
Environmental Club
Drama Club
Debate Club
Dance Club
Computer Club
Community Service
Choir
Chess Club
Band
Audiovisual Club
Astronomy Club
Art Club
Animation
0%
0%
$0
$0
0%
100%
Nursery/Toddler, Preschool, JK, SK, K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Rolling
Rolling
Not available
Not available
No
Yes: grades Nursery/Toddler - 6
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
We are looking for citizens of our world and the leaders of our tomorrow. We are looking for open minded children and parents to join our community where they will learn and discover how to ask the big questions, problem solve at their own peace and learn the importance of peace and harmony through the Montessori method of learning. We also offer a French Immersion programme.
Please review our school website here for the full details of the registration and deposits according to the age of your child.
https://cmschool.net/application-form/