Canterbury High School is an Ottawa-Carleton District School Boardhigh school in the Urbandale neighbourhood of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It is an arts magnet school, meaning that it draws in students from all across the Ottawa area and beyond by being host to their specialized arts program. It is located at 900 Canterbury Ave and is the birthplace of an enormous amount of young Canadian talent. It serves over 1300 students, more than most other schools in the area. While offering both an arts program and a general program, Canterbury is known primarily for the arts in both its local community and nationally. The Arts Canterbury program began in 1983 and still remains present in the school to this day.
History
The school opened in 1969 as a comprehensive high school. It was the last in a series of ten high schools built by the Collegiate Board to deal with baby boomers. At the time of its opening, it was considered an extremely modern school, employing all the latest ideas in education. Most notably, many of its walls were movable, allowing for an easy reorganization of space. It also had one of the largest libraries of any secondary school and today it is host to one of the largest secondary school auditoriums. From 1969 to 1976, Canterbury offered a technical program based on Aerospace Engineering. The shops offered Air-frame, and other aviation-based technical studies. Additionally, the school operated a 1969 Cessna 190J and a Schweitzer 2-33 glider, providing unique opportunities to students. However, The Ottawa Board of Education eventually withdrew support of the concept due to liability issues. The school later, as a result of a specialized schools program became an arts magnet school for the Ottawa-Gatineau region and has since drawn attention for its success in nurturing a very creative and inclusive environment for students.
Canterbury Arts
Canterbury has seven different arts programs that students must audition and interview for to be accepted into. This is a rigorous program aimed at enriching the lives of the students by teaching them the beauty of art. These departments focus on setting their students up for the utmost success in the arts at a young age by teaching them skills usually attained by students of a much higher education level. Its diverse streams give the students a variety of opportunities to be introduced to a world of expression. The seven arts students can choose from and audition for are:
Canterbury has a long list of very notable alumni thanks in part to its adoption of such a renowned arts program. These include many who have continued in their chosen field of art as well as those who have gone on to pursue sports, politics and more.
In spite of the arts program, the school still maintains a strong athletics program which includes wrestling, rowing, swimming, volleyball, baseball, basketball, soccer, football, water polo, curling, ultimate frisbee, ice hockey, rugby and track and field. It has one of the broadest ranges of sports teams in the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board and despite a heavy focus on the arts, the teams do generally very well.
