Welcome Back
Our Mission of Preparing Students to be Future Ready
We always count it a privilege to serve the needs of our families as a school, and this goes beyond providing an excellent educational experience for our students. It is our goal to create a community of families who carry a shared mission and vision of preparing students to be truly Future Ready.
Achieving academic excellence begins in Kindergarten and continues throughout our Academy as students are given a joyful and exceptionally high quality learning experience. We have a strong record of academic excellence with our Academy, but also with our College as demonstrated by the consistently high rate of students continuing on with their education in post-secondary institutions, as well as qualifying for the Alexander Rutherford Scholarship. We are currently highlighting our graduating class of 2018 on Master’s website homepage, where 90% were accepted into universities and 95% qualified for the Alexander Rutherford Scholarship.
Becoming Master Learners
The added value of attending Master’s Academy & College is the focus on the development of the student to be Future Ready. Students graduating our Academy have become Master Learners, through the intentional development of the 7 Habits of a Master Learner throughout their seven year journey. Students demonstrate a strong sense of self-reliance, responsibility, creativity, confidence, care for others, collaboration, and most important, character.
Becoming Imaginal Leaders
Our high school goal is to develop Imaginal Leaders. Those who can see, learn from, and create the future. Our graduate profile states:
“The graduates of Master’s College will be able to pursue their personal vision without limitation by achieving academic excellence and becoming Imaginal Leaders.”
So how do we develop IMAGINAL LEADERS? The Imaginal development process focuses on the competencies of learning, seeing, and creating. Students will experience learning from the past, present, and future, which requires the development of the skills of hindsight, insight, and foresight. Most of education is about learning from the past; the knowledge they are acquiring is what is already known. The Imaginal process teaches students that by seeing the future, they can learn from it.
At Master’s College, we recognize that the development of the innovative and inventive capacities are essential requirements for students to truly be Future Ready. This preparations requires the development of foresight; the ability to see the future. Foresight is a skill that is usually taught in higher education to a a very small select group of students who happen to choose a career in Future Studies programs that are designed to graduate futurists. It is our view that foresight should be introduced to students of all ages, which is why we have students in Grade 2 inventing chocolate bars.
Foresight is the ability to look into the future. This is not predicting the future, but rather creating plausible and rational scenarios of the FUTURE based on current trends and weak signals. Foresight is not fortune-telling. It is about thinking ahead so you can act ahead.
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.
Imaginal Design Program
This year in our Jr. High, we will continue to focus on the development of the four Imaginal Capacities of Integration, Improvement, Innovation, and Invention. You can read more about these capacities on our website. Below is a high level overview of the six year journey of our students becoming Imaginal Leaders.
Grade 7 – Improvement
- Introduction to system improvement theory, tools, and processes.
- Students will engage in improvement projects using the PDSA process and various quality tools for data collection to gain understanding of system behaviours and to make improvement proposals that can be tested.
Grade 8 – Innovation
- Students will be studying current quantifiable trends that will shape what living in Calgary will look like in 2030. From the trends, students will be able to create multiple scenarios around the future.
- From these scenarios, students will begin exploring areas of opportunity for innovation – what needs to be created that will bring them to that future they envision.
Grade 9 – Invention
- Students will be introduced to weak signal research. Weak signals are those ideas, or research that are not yet trends, but rather speculative possibilities that could dramatically shape our future.
- Students will be given a design challenge set in the far future of 2050, which requires them to become inventive as they exercise their imagination using current weak signal research and speculative scenario writing.
Grade 10-12 – Becoming an Imaginal Leader
Our high school Imaginal Design Program is built on the foundation of the four Imaginal Capacities from Jr. High. The focus shifts to students becoming Imaginal Leaders – those who not only possess Imaginal abilities, but have accepted the responsibility of making a difference in their world. Imaginal Leaders need to have one foot in the present and one foot in the future. The future will come, nothing can hold it back from coming. The question is, which future will they inherit? Will it be the one they create or the one that someone else creates for them? It is not so simple, but none-the-less these are the choices they face.
Grade 10 – Five Keys of Becoming an Imaginal Leader
- Students in Grade 10 will learn about Imaginal leaders from the past; what was their Big WHY, what were the drivers that caused them to pursue their Big WHY, and how did they overcome the many obstacles they faced?
- Students will learn about the 5 Keys from Tom Rudmik’s book, Becoming Imaginal – Seeing and Creating the Future of Education, as foundational principles for becoming an Imaginal Leader.
Grade 11 – Imaginal Process, Advanced
- Grade 11 students will engage deeply with the 7-step Imaginal process, that will develop their abilities to see, learn from, and create the future (more on this in future blogs). This program will give our students a unique skill set not commonly found with in high school graduates. They will leave our high school as Imaginal Leaders – with an orientation that will impact the rest of their lives and their world.
Grade 12 – Impact Project
- Students in Grade 12 will be challenged to put into practice their Imaginal abilities with an Impact project. What is the “mark” that they will leave behind or what is the difference they will make as they prepare to graduate high school?
Expansion Plans
Kindergarten
We have two expansions planned starting this fall. The first is to expand our kindergarten. Construction should start early in the fall. As with any construction that occurs during the school year, utmost priority will be given to the safety of our students.
Imaginal High School Wing
Who are the most satisfied parents in our school? In my opinion, it is the parents of our Grade 12 students. Every year we are overwhelmed by the expression of gratitude by parents and students at our Grade 12 graduation. Our graduating parents say that one of the best decisions they have ever made was to have their son or daughter continue their education at Master’s high school.
Master’s College offers a unique University Prep high school program, and it is our goal to grow our enrolment so we can offer an even richer program. But one clear challenge exists – even if we were able to attract more students, where would we put them? We have no more space!
Currently, we are fast-tracking a feasibility study which includes preliminary architectural schematics and costings of adding a second floor high school wing that will be uniquely designed to support the achievement of our graduate profile. We hope to soon announce the direction we will be taking for the development of our future high school wing.
“2.0” – 2018-19 R&D Initiatives
Our vision at Master’s is to transform education both locally and globally with Profound Learning. This coming year, our research and development initiatives will focus on the development of Profound Learning 2.0, Professional Development 2.0, Christian Education 2.0, and Master’s 2.0 – Master’s becoming an Imaginal Organization. We are using the designation of “2.0” to represent the next generation development of our 2018-19 R&D initiatives. We look forward to sharing in more detail as we continue to advance our vision.
Here’s to an exciting year…!