Our academic standards are extremely high and our students represent a hybrid breed of learners and thinkers - taking on new problems and looking for better, more innovative solutions. By ensuring regular assessments, and understanding each student's learning style, teachers are able to support and challenge students accordingly, resulting in high academic achievement. We don't just ask our students to reach their potential, we help make it happen.

Individualized attention and regular communication with parents with regard to a student's progress ensures that Urban Academy students are reaching their potential. With our teaching style, students are excited about the subject matter and make personal connections to the curriculum. We are proud to report that with our educational approach, Urban Academy has earned a 9.4/10 ranking on the Fraser Institute, showcasing that Urban Academy students are achieving academic success.

In many subjects, self assessments and rubrics (a set of criteria and standards linked to learning objectives) are used to assess students' progress in writing, math, reading, etc. By clearly defining and setting out parameters that students can work toward, they are able to develop their skills and recognize their own growth opportunities. Staff constantly evaluate these processes to push students to achieve their potential.

Students and teachers regularly connect to determine a child's progress. Assessments such as regular math and literacty assessment indicate learning progress. Additional opportunties such as math competitions reveal aptitude in math and the Foundation Skills Assessment that assesses reading, writing and mathematics are just a few of the tools used. By regularly gathering this kind of feedback, UA teaching staff are positioned to determine how students are doing and how to best support them for their ultimate academic success.

We perform regular reading and writing assessments, structured so that our teachers are able to ascertain a student’s ability. Instruction is planned accordingly to encourage students further in their areas of success and to fill in gaps with support where students are not yet fully meeting expectations.

These assessments are designed to improve student learning and mastery of the subject matter in mathematics. The ranking criteria set out by the Ministry of Education again falls under four categories: not yet meeting, meeting, fully meeting and exceeding expectations. Over the last number of years, nearly 90% of students are either fully meeting or exceeding expectations in numeracy.

BC Ministry of Education Provincial Assessments are another form of external assessments that indicate how our students are thriving in their academics. In BC, students must write provincial assessments in order to graduate. Our Senior School students perform very well on their assessments and we are always proud of their individual and aggregated achievements. We believe that their accomplishments are a reflection of how committed they are to their academics.

Academic excellence in all branches of traditional academic disciplines are tracked and shared through the Honour Roll and the Head of School’s Honours List. Candidacy is open to students in Grades 6-12 and they must be carrying a full load of courses and be on-track to graduate in order to qualify. A total of five courses will be used (in combination) to calculate Honour Roll & the Head of School’s Honours List: English, Mathematics, a Science, and Social Studies. French will be used as the fifth course if a student is enrolled in French. In the year in which a student has no Social Studies, French, Math or a social science, an alternative academic course must be substituted.

The minimum standing for Honour Roll is a 3.4 GPA, for the Head of School’s Honours List the minimum GPA is 3.8. Students will not qualify if they have a grade in any course below a C, regardless of the total overall GPA. Grades are calculated as follows:

A: 4.0
B: 3.0
C+: 2.5
C: 2.0


We are pleased to announce that term over term, on average about 45% of our Grade 6-12 students qualify for Honour Roll status based upon their academic achievement. Over 25% of all Grade 6-12 students are named to the esteemed Head of School's Honours List.

Our graduates have a 100% university acceptance rate. They have pursued a wide variety of educational opportunities, ranging from professional theatre students and opera singers to business, medical, business and veterinary professionals. We are so proud of the young leaders that emerge from our program and the community leaders they all become.