Northmount School

I am delighted to welcome you to Northmount’s Website on the Our Kids Network and I hope that you will soon visit the school if you have not done so already. Northmount is a unique place where boys are encouraged to learn and grow in a character-driven context that places a premium on our stated goal of bringing the boys along the road to honourable manhood. As parents you are your son’s first, and, most important teachers. Each boy is respected for the individual he is and his parents are very involved partners in his “school life.” The preparation for his future started at home but Northmount will continue and enhance the work you are doing as parents in an academically supportive environment. Your son will be known and mentored by his teachers and advisors. He will be understood and embraced in this community that understands and loves boys for what they really are. As a school we take great pride in our Catholic heritage. This continues to be the fundamental base in Northmount’s Character Education Program. Our student population is representative of many faith backgrounds coming from a community of families that endorse and advance the values that define Northmount School. The face of Northmount is the face of Toronto. We have tried to strike an appropriate balance for each boy in the three “A’s” of his education: academics, athletics and the arts. Boys learn best in a single sex environment. The evidence on this is overwhelming and incontrovertible. The heavy emphasis placed on girl’s education since the late 70’s has not been kind to boy’s education in general and has given rise to the myth that boys will get along regardless of curriculum and pedagogy. This is demonstrably wrong. In Quebec, Alberta and Saskatchewan, high-school drop out rates for boys age 16 and over is higher than 40%. We have seen women’s enrollment in university significantly surpass men’s university enrollment across the western world. If current trends continue, one source calculates, the last boy will graduate from “a” North American University in 2076. Some co-educational schools admit, candidly, that they have not had a boy qualify as valedictorian for a graduating class over the past ten years. At Northmount we consider this a very serious state of affairs. We at Northmount base the character and education of the boys on firm ground born of the rock of ages making us much less inclined to faddism or novelty. Your son’s education is too important to be a trial case study in the latest educational ”experiment.” As I watch the boys at play each day I am struck by how quickly they become physically strong but restrain themselves as they play with, or near, the younger ones. These emerging young men can also turn around and play a song or paint a picture that, on occasion, will make one stop in his tracks. Their work can belie an emotional depth that the boy’s verbal communication does not. Competitive, active boys will be drawn to academics if put in an environment that champions the challenge of academics balanced with the athletic and artistic prowess as it springs from these young men of virtue. Years after the Duke of Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo he was asked how this great victory was possible. He harkened back to the virtues and values his men had taken to heart while boys at school. He stated flatly, “The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.” Northmount is such a school. We look forward to welcoming you and your son. Glenn C. Domina Headmaster