Westmount Charter School: About Us

Our Vision and Purpose

Our Mission:
To meet the learning needs of gifted students and promote their social-emotional development in a congregated setting.

Vision:
Westmount Charter School will be recognized as a centre for excellence in gifted education.

Our Purpose:
The mandate of the Westmount Charter School is to provide qualitatively differentiated educational programming for students who are gifted.

Our Charter School Goal:
Each gifted learner is provided with opportunities to optimize his or her own unique potential.

About Giftedness:
At Westmount Charter School, we define Giftedness in this way: "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." For more information about Westmount's innovative approach toward gifted education, click here.

Another Definition of Giftedness
"Giftedness is 'asynchronous development' in which advanced cognitive abilities and heightened intensity combine to create inner experiences and awareness that are qualitatively different from the norm. This asynchrony increases with higher intellectual capacity. The uniqueness of the gifted renders them particularly vulnerable and requires modifications in parenting, teaching and counseling in order for them to develop optimally."
- the Columbus Group (1991, in Morelock, 1992).

Our beliefs:
-We provide opportunities to optimize potential
-We differentiate learning
-We foster respect within a safe environment
-Staff is committed to continuous, meaningful learning
-We build community while celebrating individuality.

Who are our Students? Is there admissions testing?

Our mandate is to provide an excellent, publicly-funded program for Gifted Learners, in a congregated setting, from the beginning of a child's school years all the way to grade 12.

Since we honour the extraordinary variety of ways in which students express their giftedness, we use a variety of tools in the qualification process prior to registration. All applicants provide a significant amount of written information: self/parent assessment, academic records, and professional references/recommendations. If there are psychological-educational assessments in place, those are requested. In addition, students from grades 1 to 8 will come to the school for a day of testing and observation. Students from grade 9 to 12 will engage in an intake interview process in addition to the written information that they submit.

Our largest intake group is at the grade one level where there are 68 spaces each year. Since our high school program is still quite young, there will typically be a significant number of openings in grades 10, 11 and 12; the openings at any of the other grades (2-9) usually ranges around 10 per grade level.

Once students have been accepted into the grade 1-12 program, and are achieving at a suitable level, they do not need to go through the assessment process each year, but parents do need to re-register their children each spring, and pay a deposit toward the next year's instructional resource and transportation fees.

In addition, we offer a popular Kindergarten program, but please be advised: admission to Kindergarten does not guarantee acceptance into the grade 1-12 educational program. Do check our Kindergaten admission pages, though: we have made significant changes to our Kindergarten intake procedure for the 2012-2013 school year.

What we offer

- Small class sizes
- Differentiated programming based on Alberta Education Curriculum that allows students to proceed at their own rate provided they have understood the concepts of the entire curriculum at their present level
- An emphasis on developing the Whole Child
- An emphasis on teaching students how to learn
- An emphasis on understanding concepts
- A caring learning environment that honours differences
- Qualified and dedicated staff
- A growing extracurricular program
- School bussing
- A teaching staff that models life long learning
- The opportunity to have gifted programming from the beginning of elementary grades to high school graduation
- An established program, educating gifted learners since 1996.

Click here for more information about how to choose a program for your gifted child, and Westmount's program philosophy; click here for a message from one of 2008's valedictorians, describing her experience at Westmount.

We also have a Frequently-Asked Questions webpage that may be of use to you.

Our Program

To learn more about our kindergarten, click here.
To learn more about our elementary grades (gr 1-4), click here.
To learn more about our middle school (gr 5-8), click here.
To learn more about our high school (gr 9-12), click here.

For an overview of our application/admission procedures, click here. For those of you who have previously investigated applying to Westmount, please note that there have been substantial changes to our Kindergarten and grade one admissions procedures!

We also have a series of information pamphlets available for download:
High School (grades 9-12)
Mid Grades (grades 5-8)
Elementary (grades 1-4)
Kindergarten

Would you like to visit Westmount or correspond with us? click here!

Please note: in the summer of 2011, our school moved to two new locations: K- grade 4 at the Elementary campus, 728 32 St NW (former Parkdale Elementary School building), and grades 5-12 at the Mid-High campus, 2215 Uxbridge Drive NW (former Sir William Van Horne High School building).

Our School Day

Elementary
K-4 classes begin at 8:45 AM and end at 3:35 PM
Gr 1-4 recess is from 10:20-10:35 AM and from 1:50-2:05 PM..
Gr 1-4 lunch (in classrooms) is from 11:45 AM to 12:25 PM, including a recess time.
Kindergarten classes have separate recess times for most of the year.
Students eat lunch in their classrooms; there is an optional "hot lunch" available for pre-order purchase.

Mid Grades
Gr 5-8 classes begin at 8:30 AM and end at 3:22 PM.
Gr 5-8 recess is from 9:45-10:00 AM and there is an afternoon break from 1:53-2:07 PM
Gr 5-8 lunch (in the cafeteria and atrium) is from 11:45 AM-12:40 PM. Food service, provided by a private vendor, is generally available in the cafeteria on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays as well as by pre-order.

High School
Gr 9-12 classes begin at 8:30 AM and end at 3:22 PM.
Gr 9-12 lunch (in the cafeteria and atrium) is from 12:40-1:32 PM. Food service, provided by a private vendor, is generally available in the cafeteria on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays as well as by pre-order.

Staff are available to supervise elementary students from 8:20 AM-4:00 PM only (8:15-4:00 at mid-high).Parents are urged to make every possible effort to pick up students promptly at the end of the school day.

In order to promote student security, all visitors to the school, including Westmount parents, are to sign in at the entrance to receive a visitor's badge or to show their Westmount-produced photo ID. Parents picking up their children at day's end are asked to wait outside in the designated parent area, as directed by security personnel.

To respect the needs of children with life-threatening food allergies, Westmount students are to refrain from bringing foods containing nuts or nut products to school.

Our Teachers

We are proud of our teachers and support staff! Click here for a full staff list.

Our History of Innovation

Charter Schools have the responsibility of providing and sharing innovative educational practices. Click here for a brief history of our program, and some of the innovations along the way!

Westmount's fee structure

Westmount Charter School is a publicly funded institution. We cannot and do not charge tuition! Like most public schools, however, Westmount charges modest instructional resource fees, and some Middle School and High School courses carry additional fees. In mid-high years, To learn more, click here.

Alberta's Charter public schools are autonomous public schools of choice which provide education in an innovative way. Each charter school is designed to implement innovations in the organization and delivery of education, which results in improvements in student learning. To learn more, click here.

18 January 2012