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Go to child profileThe Abelard School offers an enriched, intellectually engaging curriculum for students in grades 7 through 12. Our liberal arts education encourages excellence, from the maths and sciences to the social sciences and humanities. Socratic instruction and our integrated curriculum foster critical thinking and problem solving skills in a friendly, inclusive school environment where students encourage one another to learn and our highly qualified teachers prepare them to achieve remarkable success in university.
The Classics Room
Multimedia presentation in English 12
Grade 12 Biology
Grade 12 Physics
Historically, a liberal arts curriculum comprised a course of study required by citizens in order to take an active part in civic life. It included not just what a person would need to know, but how they would need to be, including an understanding that the cultivation of intellect is a worthy goal unto itself. The Abelard School was created to reflect those kinds of goals. In 1997, a group of seasoned teachers founded the school in order to deliver the basics of a secondary education—the knowledge and the skills required to move on to university life—as well as to impart a love of learning and to encourage creative engagement across the academic spectrum. Those ideals, and indeed those teachers, remain today. The school is small—there is a total enrolment of just 50—and whatever it may lack in terms of a breadth of programming it gains in depth and individual attention.
Focus | Special needs |
---|---|
Academic | Gifted |
Subject | offered |
---|---|
Evolution as consensus theory | |
Evolution as one of many equally viable theories | |
Evolution is not taught |
Subject | offered |
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Biology | |
Chemistry | |
Ecology | |
Geology | |
Meteorology | |
Physics | |
Physiology | |
Zoology |
Subject | offered |
---|---|
Acting | |
Dance | |
Drama/Theatre | |
Graphic Design | |
Music | |
Visual Arts |
Expressive | |
Disciplined |
Subject | offered |
---|---|
Computer science | |
Robotics | |
Web design |
Flexible pacing style | offered |
---|---|
Subject-streaming (tracking) | |
Multi-age classrooms as standard | |
Ability-grouping (in-class) as common | |
Frequent use of cyber-learning (at-their-own-pace) | |
Regular guided independent study opportunities | |
Differentiated assessment |
Subject Type | offered |
---|---|
Learning strategy and study counselling; habit formation | |
Extra support and minor accommodations for children experiencing subclinical difficulties |
Subject Type | offered |
---|---|
Accommodations | |
Modifications | |
Extra support |
Read our guide to special needs schools and special education
Program | offered |
---|---|
Full-time gifted program (parallel to rest of school) | |
Part-time gifted program (pull-out; parallel to rest of class) |
Curriculum delivery: Acceleration and enrichment (There is an equal emphasis on acceleration and enrichment.)
Program | offered |
---|---|
Custom subject enrichment (special arrangement) | |
Custom curriculum compacting (special arrangement) | |
Guided independent study (custom gifted arrangement) | |
Cyber-learning opportunities (custom gifted arrangement) | |
Formalized peer coaching opportunities (specifically for gifted learners to coach others) | |
Custom subject acceleration (special arrangement) | |
Career exploration (custom gifted arrangement) | |
Project-based learning (custom gifted arrangement) | |
Mentorships (custom gifted arrangement) |
In grade Gr. 12, Abelard School students perform an average of >2 hours of homework per night.
7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Abelard School | 90 mins | 90 mins | 120 mins | 160 mins | 160 mins | 160 mins |
Site Average | 53 mins | 57 mins | 69 mins | 81 mins | 97 mins | 106 mins |
Lettered or numbered grades | Gr. 7 to Gr. 12 |
Prose (narrative)-based feedback | Gr. 7 to Gr. 12 |
Parent-teacher meetings | Gr. 7 to Gr. 12 |
Competitive sports: N/A
Recreational sports: N/A
The Abelard School offers 17 clubs and extracurricular programs.
7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | |
Day | $20,000 | $22,000 |
Grade range that need-based aid is offered: | 9 to 12 |
Percentage of grade-eligible students receiving financial aid | 20% |
Average aid package size | $10,000 |
Percentage of total enrolment on financial aid | 20% |
Total aid available | $100,000 |
This school works with Apple Financial Inc. for processing financial applications
This information is not currently available.
Grades | Gender | Living Arrangement | Enrolment | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Group 1 | Gr. 7 to Gr. 12 | Coed | Day | 50 |
Total enrolment | 50 |
Average class size | 12 |
% of international students (total enrolment) | 2% |
Number of different nationalities within student population | 12 |
7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Day Enrollment | 8 | 8 | 10 | 13 | 13 | 14 |
Class Size | 8 | 8 | 10 | 10 | 8 | 8 |
Assessment | Required | Grades |
---|---|---|
Interview | 7 - 12 | |
SSAT | ||
SSAT (out of province) | ||
Entrance Exam(s) | 7 - 12 | |
Entrance Essay | 7 - 12 |
Day students: Rolling
Offer mid-year entry:
N/A
Application fee: N/A
Registration fee: N/A
Deposit:
N/A
Applications will be evaluated according to four criteria: interview, test score, report card, and entrance essay (written at the school). Applicants are additionally invited to submit a piece of work of which they are proud and that demonstrates their potential; if they choose to include this, it will be taken into consideration along with the rest of their application.
All applicants must submit the following:
This is the percentage of applicants typically accepted into the school. So if 50 students are admitted out of 100 applicants, the school has an overall acceptance rate of 50%.
Student Entry Points
This shows approximately how many openings there are likely to be in each grade in a typical year, as well as the estimated acceptance rate for each grade level.
Student Type | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Day Acceptance (Acceptance rate) | 8 - 12 (50%) | 8 - 12 (50%) | 10 - 15 (50%) | 1 - 3 (50%) | 1 - 3 (50%) | 1 - 3 (50%) |
Average graduating class size | 14 |
Students accepted into post-secondary studies upon graduation | N/A |
Percentage of students who attend post-secondary institutions outside of Canada | N/A |
Students who attended a Ivy+ school Number of students in the past 5 years that that attended one of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Stanford, University of Chicago, Oxford or Cambridge (UK) | 15 |
The Abelard School Graduates’ Post-Secondary Studies:
This information is not currently available.Aggregate of All Schools’ Post-Secondary Studies:
Career planning | N/A |
Internships |
Mentorship Program | |
University counseling |
What Abelard School says:
Alumnus | Grad Year | Accomplishment |
---|---|---|
Vitalik Buterin | 2013 | Vitalik Buterin is a programmer, writer, founder of Ethereum and co-founder of Bitcoin Magazine. In 2014, he won the World Technology Award for the co-creation and invention of Ethereum. |
Kate Wallace | 2012 | Named by Campus Life as one of 22 MOST INSPIRING COLLEGE WOMEN UNDER 22 for developing a software app to combat human trafficking and child exploitation in India. |
Gabe De Roche | 2000 | Gabe De Roche is the Senior Communications Advisor to the Ontario Minister of Health and Longterm Care. |
Christopher Olah | 2012 | Christopher Olah is employed at Google Brain as a research scientist focusing on: Distributed Systems and Parallel Computing; Machine Intelligence; and Natural Language Processing. See the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/06/technology/google-artificial-intelligence.html |
Alumni Highlights
The Abelard School is a place where ideas and people matter, where debate is encouraged, and where creativity and innovation come to life. It is a place where learning progresses logically through an integrated curriculum, and students talk about Plato, Woolf, and quantum theory in the hallways as well as in the classroom. Abelard is a school for the student who wants to be inspired but also challenged to work and think beyond the norm. It is a school for scholars.
The Abelard School has been preparing students to enter university since 1997. The focus of our programme (grades 7-12) is to ensure that our students graduate as astute critical thinkers, ready to enter and succeed in the university program of their choice. Our senior courses are designed as preparation for the Advanced Placement examinations, on which our students have consistently achieved top scores.
Along with encouraging high academic achievement, Abelard strives to ensure that our students do not limit their future choices by specializing in one particular discipline; our individualized course selection process ensures that students profit from the breadth of courses in our liberal arts curriculum throughout all four years of high school. As a small school, we are able to integrate our courses with one another to allow for greater interdisciplinary learning, and provide our students with increased student-teacher interaction to better help them realize their goals. With our prime location in downtown Toronto, we take full advantage of the many learning opportunities that can be had outside of the classroom in art galleries, museums, the theatre, the opera, and the like.
We invite you to learn more about the Abelard School through our website and in person. We look forward to meeting you!
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