Curriculum

Nurturing Excellence in a Christ-centred Academic Environment

The curriculum at OCS meets – and exceeds – the Ontario Ministry guidelines and provides strong academic and extracurricular programs in French, music, athletics, and the arts. Curriculum is delivered by specialized teachers, with full rotary teaching in the upper grades. The school’s mission statement, “Nurturing Excellence in a Christ-centred Academic Environment,” is the focus of all activities as students receive a developmentally appropriate and well-rounded education.

Our desire is to produce graduates that have acquired a wide range of information from broadly based fields of study. We hope – our students develop good character and a strong sense of responsibility to others. We hope that our students recognize and use their God-given gifts and talents and become all that God intended them to be. We base the teaching/learning process on the following principles:

• Effective schools can make significant differences in the achievement of students.
• Student achievement requires well-articulated curriculum. We are committed to staying in touch with current education-related research and resources and examining our processes on a regular basis.
• Student achievement requires a safe and orderly environment.
• Student achievement is partially dependent on quality individual classroom teachers. We are committed to teachers’ on-going professional development in order for them to know their art more fully and deeply. They can become expert teachers,who teach students the most important things in the most effective ways.
• Students are at the centre of the learning process and should be actively involved in making sense of the world around them in each subject area.
• Teaching is about maximizing the capacity of each learner. All learners require engaging schoolwork – to develop their individual capacities so that they can develop into everything they were meant to be.
• Students need to accept responsibility for their own academic growth and progress.
• Everything a student says or creates is useful information in understanding that particular student and how instruction should be organized in order to meet those needs.

Learning Strategies

Every student learns and retains information in unique ways. An integral part of a student’s experience at OCS is the journey towards understanding oneself as a problem-solver and a critical thinker. We – feel that differences need to be celebrated.

The Learning Strategies Centre at OCS is dedicated to coming alongside students, teachers, and parents to gain an understanding of individual student learning and mapping out steps toward success.

Learning Strategies assistance may include the teaching of time management and organizational strategies, accommodations to regular programming, the use of assistive technology, and one-on-one or small-group sessions. As a result, students with learning differences are equipped to recover needed skills and motivated to work towards greater independence.

Students who demonstrate consistent mastery of subject areas or concepts are afforded the opportunity to enrich their learning through our Compacted Education program. For – more information about our program, contact our Learning Strategies Coordinator Allison Simao at: asimao@oakvillechristianschool.com.