St. Anne’s to welcome first Grade 9 students in September 2022

July 8, 2021 · 0 Comments

St. Anne’s, a new independent girls’ school in Aurora, will welcome its first Grade 9 students in September of 2022.

Instead of beginning their secondary school education at St. Anne’s new campus built in and around a Jacobean-style manor house on St. John’s Sideroad between Yonge Street and Bathurst Street, the first crop of “Cygnets” will begin their secondary school education at St. Andrew’s College until their campus is completed and able to welcome students from Grades 5 through 10 the following year.

The school announced the new timelines last Wednesday, June 30, noting their temporary home on the St. Andrew’s College (SAC) campus, The Cygnet Centre, “will house separate teaching and learning spaces but allow the sharing of facilities as we work towards opening our permanent campus at 306 St. John’s Sideroad.”

St. Anne’s students will have access to SAC facilities “to ensure they meet their academic, athletic, co-curricular and leadership passions.”

This first crop of students could be welcomed into St. Anne’s permanent home as early as next fall, once complete.

“There is no better time than right now for young women to be given the opportunity to participate in an educational experience that will be life-changing,” said Sabrina D’Angelo, Head of St. Anne’s School (SAS), in a statement. “At St. Anne’s, students will be exposed to unique learning strategies, encouraged to embrace the arts, explore athletics, and [be] called upon to be leaders while developing life-long friendships.

“What an extraordinarily unique opportunity the First Cygnets will experience as members of the very first class at SAS. What excites me the most is the active voices these young women will have in shaping the strategic framework of the school. Creating a comprehensive plan for the future, including mission, vision, values, programmatic ideals, and cultural expectations, the First Cygnets will lead the way.”

Indeed, this first group of students will be definitive on SAS’s future.

“When we talk about the founding of St. Anne’s School 100 years from now, we will speak of these incredible young women, their defining moments and their connection to the development of the school’s mission, principles and values.”

The foundation of St. Anne’s School was announced by St. Andrew’s College last fall.

Once complete, it will be the first independent school for girls in York Region, offering day classes for more than 350 young women.

The St. John’s Sideroad home that will serve as its nerve-centre was previously owned by SAC parents Anne and Andrew Dunin and is in the heart of the Shining Hill development that is in the northwest quadrant of Yonge and St. John’s Sideroad.

The space boasts facilities that can lend themselves perfectly to classrooms, offices, a gymnasium, dining facilities, and outbuildings that have the potential to be transformed for a variety of uses, including makerspaces for girls to work on engineering, design, robotics, coding and other STEAM-related areas.

It will be a school for “exceptional young women and girls who welcome a challenge, strive for distinction, create community, build character, own their own voice, imagine the future and build a better world.”

“This is St. Anne’s School: a school with its own bold approach to girl-centred learning that encourages the curiosity of emerging scientists and mathletes, honours young innovators, inspires creative artists, elevates budding entrepreneurs, celebrates driven athletes and sharpens the voice and vision of young women who will lead the next generation,” said the school.

“There has never been a better time for strong, female-centred educational environments and likewise there has never been a more crucial time for understanding across the various divides of identity. That’s why St. Anne’s and St. Andrew’s are setting a new gold standard for independent education. It is a unique and revolutionary arrangement: two distinct schools right across each other from Aurora – one all-girls, the other all-boys – in partnership but on their own paths, in partnership but on their own paths, close enough to inspire new perspectives and allow elasticity of outlook, yet far enough apart to develop a powerful sense of self.”

For more on St. Anne’s School, visit www.stannes.ca.

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter