Collège Jean de la Mennais

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Collège Jean de la Mennais

Motto Veritas liberabit vos
(Latin: "The truth shall make you free")
Established 1890
(1972 as JDLM)
Type Private
Director Serge Courtemanche
Students 1,450
Location La Prairie, Quebec, Canada
Nickname Amirals
Website http://www.jeandelamennais.qc.ca

Collège Jean de la Mennais is a french, private mixed secondary school on the South Shore of Montreal, Québec, Canada. The school is located at 870, chemin de Saint-Jean in the municipality of La Prairie. As of 2006, the school has around 1450 elementary and high school students. It is located in a small town and is heavily surrounded by trees. The school was used to be directed by religious brothers, although it has been directed by seculars for many years now. Right beside the main buildings, there is a private cemetery surrounded by trees for defunct brothers. Although it was used to be a very religious school where teachers were mostly brothers, only a very few of them still teach and/or live in it today. The front of the institution is the La Prairie municipal cemetery and it is backed by a small open-pit mine.

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[edit] History

The institution was officially founded by the Brothers of Christian Instruction in 1890, an international Christian educational organization founded in 1819 in France by two brothers: Gabriel Deshayes and Jean-Marie de la Mennais for the instruction of youth that has education institutions all over the world. The school was named Jean de la Mennais in 1972 in honor of Jean-Marie Robert de la Mennais, co-founder of the Brothers of Christian Instruction. Many other schools in many other countries including France and Japan have the same or very similar name to Jean de la Mennais. Although it only had high school beforehand, elementary grade 5 and 6 were introduced in 1999.

[edit] Today

[edit] Environment

The school is very well equipped and modern with recent computer labs, modern science labs, a freshly renovated cafeteria, big classrooms, a dance studio, two sport complexes with a pool and three gyms (including one synthetic grass gym for indoor soccer and golf). The school has earned popularity over the years in Montreal with its high rankings in the L'Actualité/Fraser Institute annual Québec high school ranking report. By calculating the average score of the school from 2001 to 2006, it is ranked second best school in the province with a score of 9.9 right behind Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf and Collège Jean-Eudes both with scores of 10.0. As of 2006's report, JDLM has a perfect mark of 10.0 which makes it one of the nine number one elite schools across the province and the best high school on the South Shore of Montreal. Jean de la Mennais is often regarded as one of the most prestigious secondary institution on the South Shore of Montreal.

[edit] Admission

Unlike many other top private schools in Québec, Jean de la Mennais doesn't necessarily take the best candidates for admission. Since one of the main goal of the Brother of Christian Instruction is to let education be available to everyone and especially to the working class, the school admits student more randomly. All candidates are asked to pass an admission exam, this exam is to eliminate inadequate candidates whose academic capacities don't meet the school requirements. Some of those who pass will be admitted on the application order basis, those who applied first during a certain time frame or who have or had parents/siblings at school are admitted first. The other ones will be admitted following an electronic draw.

[edit] Programs

The school offers two main secondary programs: the regular and the enriched curriculums. These two programs have the exact courses from secondary one to four with the exception of Spanish as an enriched topic for the enriched section. The enriched program is changed into an advanced science program in the last year with mathematics 536, physics, chemistry and advanced science topics as an extra course. In their senior year (secondary 5), students can choose optional courses to match with their interest: journalism, psychology, advanced mathematics, physics, chemistry, law, biology, enriched science topics etc. The school offers three levels of English: English as a second language (basic level), advanced English (enriched) and English language arts (for native or very advanced speakers).

[edit] Notable Alumni

  • Stéphane Gendron, current mayor of Huntingdon, Quebec and political analyst for several media outlets
  • Honourable Henri Richard, Quebec court judge

[edit] Links

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