Our Facilities

Home to our popular Breakfast Club, The YMCA Academy’s cafeteria is the students’ main social gathering space before school and at lunch, and also serves as a launching pad for our many excursions. In addition, the room’s many windows make it the perfect location for our greening and container gardening initiatives.

Built by a former YMCA Academy student as a cooperative education placement, the school’s computer lab features PCs and Macs equipped with design tools and video and audio editing software. The lab hosts our popular Communications Technology courses, as well as the Academy-exclusive History of Civilizations course — based on and integrating a popular multiplayer video game.

Need somewhere to unwind, or a quiet place to write a test? The Academy's student room is an unprogrammed space that puts students' needs first. Available by appointment or on a drop-in basis, the student room is a supervised area that still provides a quiet, private space for anyone who needs it.

The YMCA Academy’s modern and impressive science lab features a generous amount of natural light and full complement of chemicals, glassware, Bunsen burners, and microscopes, as well as an in-class resource library of science related journals and other specialized lab equipment. These resources help Academy students to study science with a focus on experiential learning.

YMCA Academy students get inspired, create, and collaborate in our dynamic art studio. This room, featuring tons of natural light, plays host to innovative art projects that involve drawing, painting, collage, stencilling, multimedia, sculpture, and manipulating celluloid film. It's also a vibrant setting for a variety of guest presentations and workshops featuring local artists and thinkers.

Full-school assemblies, extracurricular clubs, and celebrations (including our annual December talent show) happen in the Academy’s central gathering space. It is in this safe and welcoming space that we come together once a month as a school to discuss issues that matter to high school students, from technology addiction and emotional intelligence to finding a summer job.

As part of the Academy’s commitment to nurturing the whole person, the school features a full-time Student Life Counsellor. This integral staff member’s role is to monitor the social and emotional well-being of Academy students, help them manage stress and anxiety, and assist in their self-advocacy when communicating with peers and teachers.

Learning comes to life in the Academy’s bright, inviting classrooms. Students work and interact using fast, powerful laptops in a wireless online environment, and teachers use a suite of tools — including cloud-based classroom portals, videoconferencing, Smart Boards, audio and video recording equipment, and physical manipulatives — to deliver engaging and experiential lessons and assignments.