St. Timothy's Classical Academy

This is a difficult question for many Christian parents. You have invested so much in your children while they are young, planting seeds of faith and learning. And now you must decide where they will spend their days, continuing in that journey. You are looking for strong academics; a place that values filling young minds with as many facts about our created world as possible. You also desire a school where children can ask questions, make connections, and feel confident in finding the truth.

​You hope for a place where children can learn to be a light to the world, and where they are surrounded by and learn to seek and create beauty. As Christians you desire an environment where goodness, kindness, and respect are expected, scripture is embraced, and Christ is glorified. Like you, at St. Timothy’s we are focused not just on what children are learning, but who they are becoming. We provide the good soil for the seeds that you have planted to grow, cultivating mind, heart, body, and soul.

Prepares students for the world and doesn’t just protect them from it; it prepares your child to succeed at life so they can meaningfully engage in the world and make a difference – to ask questions, apply logic and develop core knowledge. Takes seriously that all truth is God’s truth as it trains children to seek knowledge and truth for a lifetime. Is inherently transformational: by being immersed in the truths of the gospel and the great ideas of Western culture, students are changed. We seek, with the Apostle Paul, to be “transformed by the renewal” of our minds and hearts (Rom. 12:1-2). We hope and believe that this will result in the best citizens who will in turn transform their communities, working creatively in all spheres of life.

Instills a life-long love of learning: students’ God-given desire to know is captured and cultivated by an exciting and joy-filled learning environment. links education directly with the purpose of a Christian life. A classical Christian education knits together every subject, as both a reflection of God’s order and a way of answering His call to come to him.

Our mission is to equip the children of faithful Christian families with the classical tools of learning through an exceptional education rooted in the deep cultural and Christian heritage of Western civilization, enabling them to understand the past, engage the present, and form the future to serve God and neighbour to the best of their abilities.

The resurgence of classical, Christian education began in the U.S. in the early 1990s, and has met with great success. Several Ottawa families decided to explore the possibility of opening a Christian elementary school in Ottawa that would follow the classical method of instruction. The school was also inspired by the educational approach of Augustine College, a one-year Christian liberal arts post-secondary school program in Ottawa. St. Timothy’s opened its doors in September, 2004, with 11 students in grades 1 – 4, and has been growing ever since.

A classical education uses pedagogical methods that tap into the best way children learn, based on a three-part process called the “Trivium.” Grammar: Young children having an innate ability to absorb and retain information. They derive great pleasure from chanting, reciting, and memorizing because it is their natural way of learning. Learning and memorizing phonics, grammar, the multiplication table, historical dates and figures, scientific facts, all help build a necessary foundation to the future enjoyment of learning.​

Logic: As students enter the next stage, around grade 6, they naturally begin to question more and to understand the relationship between the facts they have learned. They begin to move from the "what" to the "why” in a stage of argumentativeness and inquiry as they question most of what they are told. In this stage, students are taught how to ask questions, to solve problems, and to argue logically. The development of sound reasoning requires a thorough knowledge of the basic facts, or grammar, of the subject at hand, and so builds on the grammar stage. Perhaps most importantly, this stage teaches students to differentiate between truth and falsehood.​

Rhetoric: Lastly, by about grade 9, having gained a strong foundation of knowledge, as well as critical skills of logical argumentations, students enter the "poetic" stage. The rhetoric stage is the time for the maturing scholar to weave together the knowledge of the grammar stage and the reasoning skills of the logic stage with the craftsmanship of elegant discourse. Grammar, logic, and rhetoric are not subjects in themselves; they are the essential tools of learning that students bring to bear on a variety of subjects (language, math, history, science, etc.).

We wish our students to be familiar with the great ideas and works of history. We teach our students: good quality children’s literature, a foundation of historical facts, sacred music by great composers, beautiful and inspiring poetry, and the wonder of the created world around them. We focus on books, writers, and subjects that have been taught for centuries because they have stood the test of time and are worth knowing. Writers such as Shakespeare, Dickens, and J.R.R. Tolkien; books such as Charlotte’s Web, the Odyssey, and Treasure Island; poets such as Keats, Frost, and Rossetti; composers such as Bach, Mozart, and Vivaldi. How can elementary students learn what appears to be so advanced? We lay the foundations at each level of learning and build upon them. Children are naturally drawn to what is true, good, and beautiful and eagerly take up the challenge.

Classical education takes a coherent approach to learning. Since all knowledge is interrelated, our curriculum directs the students to make connections between the subjects. For example, when the grade 1s and 2s are covering ancient history, they are excited when reading Old Testament bible stories that mention now-familiar places such as Ur, Mesopotamia, Canaan, and the Euphrates. In the later grades, the reading of Vergil's Aeneid and Homer’s Odyssey supports the students' study of Greek and Roman history, of Latin grammar, of English composition, the nature of heroism, and of man's understanding of the divine. It is also a systematic approach that allows students the opportunity to make connections between past events and the current flood of information in our culture.

For thousands of years, the approach of classical education has been the primary tool for forming both courageous, effective leaders and humble, holy citizens, both of this world and the next. It is sometimes called “leadership education” because it builds skills needed for leadership and good citizenship: logic, debate, public speaking, clear reasoning, researching, writing, and communicating. Education should not simply be about job training; it should be the formation of the soul, the training of the will, the ordering of the passions, the development of discipline and courage, and the cultivation of the imagination.... all of which orders the human person to seek the true, good, and beautiful in the ONE who is Truth, Goodness, and Beauty Himself.

We believe in the exposure to good quality literature from an early age. Throughout the grades we move from fairy tales and fables, to early readers (Frog and Toad), then short novels with reading. questions (Charlotte’s Web, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), and finally more challenging novels (Treasure Island, A Christmas Carol, Animal Farm, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Homer’s The Odyssey), plus short stories and poetry. Our program entails the study of grammar, development of good writing skills, acquisition of diverse vocabulary, and regular spelling tests. Our students learn to form proper sentences, then write clear paragraphs, and finally construct a five-paragraph essay.

We strongly believe in establishing basic math facts in the early grades in order to ensure our students have a strong foundation to enable them to go on to more complex problems, but perhaps even more importantly, to give them the confidence to do so. They do regular speed drills and testing and by the end of grade 3 have the multiplication table to 12 fully memorized. In the older grades they are able to move to complex word problems, and study algebra and geometry. We desire our students to understand and discover the beauty of math, as it represents the order and symmetry of God’s creation.

We use a program that presents history from ancient days to the middle ages and early modern times, including the explorers, to modern events in the 19th and 20th centuries. It includes a unit on pioneer times for the younger students and Canadian history for the older students. The students learn historical facts and study maps and biographies of important figures. The older students begin to look more carefully at historical causation, and the patterns of human behaviour through the centuries. In the 7th and 8th grades, our students return to ancient times and begin to rely on primary and secondary sources, preparing them for future research.

Our primary goal in science is to teach observation skills and to engage the senses in order to create a sense of wonder of the world God has created. We cover many disciplines throughout the years: Earth Science: astronomy and geology, oceanic life, weather and climate; Life Science: trees and plants, reptiles, insects, birds and mammals; the Human Body: human anatomy and physiology; Chemistry and Physics. Our students study and memorize basic facts, and as they get older, they are able to do more investigation and classification. The senior students also begin to learn the fascinating history of medicine.