Thornlea Secondary School

Academic Life

For all of its extracurricular idiosyncrasies, Thornlea is by all accounts a reasonably paradigmatic Canadian high school with departments in a fairly standard set of subject areas. Alongside traditional disciplinary staples such as English, mathematics, science (chemistry, physics, and biology), and social science (divided evenly between history and geography), Thornlea also offers courses in the fine arts, music (vocal, choral, orchestral, wind ensemble and jazz), drama, and design and technology. A survey course in philosophy that is generally popular among Thornlea seniors has also been offered inconsistently over the years, depending upon the availability of a qualified instructor. A variety of popular creative writing courses have also been offered over the years, again, the existence of which has typically been a function of instructor interest and availability.

Related Topics:
Subject areas - English - Mathematics - Science - Chemistry - Physics - Biology - Social science - History - Geography - Fine arts - Music - Choral - Orchestral - Jazz - Drama - Design and technology - Philosophy - Creative writing

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Students from Thornlea have been known to perform extremely well in provincial competitions in the sciences, such as the Ontario Biology Competition, hosted by the University of Toronto, and various mathematics and engineering competitions hosted by the University of Waterloo. Thornlea also has an excellent Modern Languages department, as evidenced by its students' consistently high scores in regional and provincial French competitions over the past decade.

Related Topics:
Biology - University of Toronto - Mathematics - Engineering - University of Waterloo - French

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The acceptance rate of Thornlea graduates into post-secondary institutions, most often colleges and universities in the province of Ontario, but not infrequently in neighbouring provinces or in the United States is, in general, quite high. Whether this is due to rigorous academic standards at Thornlea itself, Thornlea students' own peculiar diligence, or the overall socio-economic privilege of the community is largely a matter of speculation.

Related Topics:
Ontario - United States - Socio-economic privilege

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