WESTMOUNT CHARTER SCHOOLInterested in attending Westmount? To apply for the 2010-2011 school year, check the admission pages - our parent information night dates have now been set. To dowload an elementary grades application package, click here after 9:00 PM on February 3, 2010. Parents of currently-enrolled grade 1-11 Westmount students, please log in to re-register for 2010-2011 by February 19, 2010.
Westmount Charter School is a K-12 school for gifted students in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Our fourteenth instructional year began on September 1, 2009. Our publicly-funded school began as ABC Charter Public School in 1996 with 116 students in grades 1-3. In 2002, our name officially changed to Westmount Charter School and we have now grown to a student population of well over 1,000!
We hope that you will find our website helpful in answering many of your questions about our school and about gifted learners. There is an FAQ page, or you can follow the links along the right-hand side of each web page, or you can browse the student, parent and educator links at the top of each page. In addition, currently-enrolled Westmount students, their parents, and Westmount staff, are able to "log in" to have access to additional password-protected areas of the website.
As a Charter School, we are expected to develop and share innovative practices in education, and our History and Innovations web page outlines some of our contributions to the education of gifted learners. As well, Charter Schools undergo a thorough evaluation every five years - click here to see the very positive report of the Alberta Education review team (95 pages), presented to the Westmount Charter Board in February 2009. As well, two of our teachers have received major honours in recent months: Mrs. Rona Reid (nee MacEachern)was one of 23 recipients of the 2009 Alberta Education Excellence in Teaching Awards; and Mr. Neil Robinson is one of 6 recipients of the 2009 Governor General's Awards for excellence in teaching Canadian History. We are very proud of all our staff: for a full list, click here.
The basics
Our Vision:
"Westmount Charter School, "as a partner in the best learning system in the world", will be recognized as the centre for excellence in gifted education."
Our Purpose:
"To provide qualitatively differentiated educational programming for Kindergarten through Grade 12 students who are gifted." (The Charter, 1998)
Our Definition of Giftedness:
"Students are gifted when they perform, or show potential for performing, remarkably high levels of accomplishment in learning rate, depth of knowledge, and reasoning and problem-solving abilities when compared to others of their age, experience, and environment."
Our Program provides:
- an established program, now in its fourteenth year of educating gifted learners
- a multi-faceted understanding of giftedness
- small class sizes and a caring learning environment that honours differences
- differentiated programming where teachers and students make modifications to process, product and /or pace within the Alberta Education curriculum to best reflect the student’s learning needs
- an emphasis on developing the whole child
- an emphasis on teaching students how to learn
- an emphasis on understanding concepts, and on developing a variety of creative ways for students to "show what they know"
- a qualified and dedicated staff
- school bussing and good access via Calgary Transit
- opportunities for volunteerism and humanitarian involvement in the world
- the opportunity to stay at the same school from the beginning of elementary grades to high school graduation, a huge difference from many gifted programs which focus only on the middle years.
Our Admin Team
Martha Faulkner, Principal
Marylyn Waters, Assistant Principal
Hal Curties, Vice Principal
Dani Sever, Vice Principal
Chris Hooper, Vice Principal
Merv Kurtz, Superintendent
Megan O'Hara, Secretary-Treasurer.
22 January 2010
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