Horizons Secondary School is dedicated to providing an environment of creative thought and dialogue with a strong focus on cooperative learning. HSS offers several programs designed to meet the educational needs of our community. Our small class sizes ensure that your child receives more individual assistance with their work and thus their cognitive journey.
Horizons Secondary School employs teaching strategies largely based on cooperative and constructivist theories in pedagogy. Our educational philosophy is that knowledge is constructed by individuals and therefore not simply deposited by an instructor from the outside in. The teacher provides the students with chances to connect learning with personal experience and prior knowledge.
Horizons Secondary School aims to provide students with an education that stimulates thought and curiosity. The balance consists of providing students with enough of a challenge to provoke interest and thought, without overwhelming students or underestimating their potential.
In addition to this philosophical basis, Horizons will encourage and accept students autonomy and initiative; allow student inquiry to drive lessons; use primary as well as secondary resources; encourage students to express themselves and engage in dialogue both with each other and with the teacher; provide sufficient wait time after posing questions, and design student-centered lessons that are sensitive to multiple-intelligence theories and the diverse learning styles of students.
A multicultural awareness will also shape our strategies and school philosophy as a whole, creating an environment where culturally relevant teaching can exist. Through modeling and guided practice, students will become independent practitioners capable of higher-order and meta-cognitive thinking. Lectures and teacher-guided instruction allow for the development of skills; cooperative activities, presentations, and experiments allow students to partake in active learning; various forms of individual, peer, and teacher evaluation and assessment allow for reflection, meta-cognition, and growth.