Teaching and Innovation

All measures are implemented to support the student and their motivation. At Vanguard School, students learn to know themselves, accept their differences, and equip themselves to compensate for their difficulties. In this environment, the student is supported, guided, and respected. They understand their value.

At the same time, the student becomes aware that they can achieve academic success and that they have more and more control over their learning. A new and more positive identity emerges. Gradually, they envisage even greater successes, including the eventual awarding of their high school diploma. Despite their differences, they become winners with similar future aspirations as other students in the province.

The student is at the heart of our interventions and benefits from continuous support from specialized personnel; teachers generally have expertise in special education and remedial education. They are accompanied by numerous professionals, including speech therapists, psychologists, special care counsellors, psychoeducators, social workers, and sexologists.

Our multidisciplinary team shares all the information about each student’s situation, which allows us to have a common perception of the student’s difficulties and effectively determine the nature of the interventions that are required. Interventions that are sustained and personalized throughout the student’s years at school

In this context, the differences of each of our students are taken into account and lead us to diversify the content, support, and work methods. Our technological tools are also precious support (software, various applications, interactive boards, digitalization of the material, FM systems, etc.) to help the student in a learning situation and also to promote feedback in class.

Vanguard’s model ensures that the student is invited into a process that allows them to become aware of their ways of learning. They are quickly led to question and reflect on their practices and how to use and improve on them. We seek to generate the development of strategies that will allow students to become competent and progress at school in all disciplines. To do this, we rely on explicit teaching that gradually leads the student to autonomy in their learning processes.

An IEP (Individual Education Plan) is a tool in which the student and the parent are at the center.

It is a personalized approach, with each student receiving an intervention adapted to their specific characteristics. In parallel to this process, the multidisciplinary team is always actively seeking solutions while ensuring that it builds on the strengths of the students.

The goal of the drama class is to build self-esteem in our students and have them experience success in front of a large audience. For this reason, we have developed a musical theatre program that perfectly meets this objective. Supported by state-of-the-art equipment and professional learning space, we can create a quality show where students sing, dance, perform, and excel. The kind of project you never forget.

Welcome to the wonderful world of performance!

This program was designed for students whose academic progress was difficult in elementary school, despite the support and approaches of our specialized teachers. Students who, early in their schooling, were under a significant amount of cognitive overload, leading to the need to alleviate the content of programs and expectations. In this sense, a differentiated curriculum was established. Thus, each student progresses at their own pace. The group usually comprises 6–12 students per class, depending on the year.

In this program, an emphasis is placed on specific academic content to help make the student functional:

• Communication and language development (developing vocabulary, language functions, strategies for regulating interactions, and other elements related to comprehension, such as figurative language, deductions and inferences, understanding humour, etc.);
• Increase the repertoire of strategies related to reading and writing;
• Use mathematical language in a variety of real-life experiences.

Content is supplemented by several complementary subjects: English, science, geography and history, art and physical education.

Another important part of this program is related to self-knowledge and practical training 

• Discovery and projection of oneself in the future (my strengths, my interests, etc.);
• Determine my possibilities (e.g.: researching occupations, qualities required for the job market, and consideration of current practices and responsibilities);
• Volunteering in their community;
• Discovery of the world of work (practical knowledge activities that take place in the Interval kitchen),
• Personal development (social skills development, conflict management, self-esteem, etc.)

It is important to note that this course allows access at age 15 to both the FPT (Vocational Training) if the student remains at an elementary academic level and the FMS (Semi-Skilled Trade) if the student begins the academic content of secondary school.

For our students who cannot complete their elementary or Cycle 1 high school education, we offer a program aimed at developing skills related to the job market so that these students can also find a path to a future.

This program began in 1996 following a series of questions about the results and low academic motivation of certain students, who were then 16 years old. Since no food service existed at the school, Mr. Stéphane Lamontagne and his colleague, Nancy St-Martin, created a school cafeteria service operated entirely by the students and teachers assigned to this group.

Even today, this “small business” relies on this entrepreneurial formula to develop personal and professional autonomy among some twenty students. More than 250 meals are served every day.

Our program, which fully complies with the requirements of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, is distinguished by its family and human approach, as illustrated by the presence of three special education teachers who work with our students daily, as well as a speech therapist and a special care counsellor who join the program a few times a week. The mandate of all these interveners is to help our students progress in the different basic subjects (French, mathematics, and English) and complementary subjects, to identify their professional profile and their skills, to develop the basic competencies necessary to hold a job, and for some, to certify their work as a kitchen helper.

Our program also distinguishes itself by the nature of its internships, the first of which is within our company, which allows the student to be introduced to the reality of the work world and its requirements without worrying, and this is in the continuous presence of our staff. The second is to provide a full-time external internship experience rather than an alternating one (2 days of class and 3 days of internship), as other educational institutions do. This approach facilitates the retention of learning in the workplace and is well-received by our partner companies.