The Aquinas Centre was created in 2017, and is an expansion of the programming previously known as the Resource Room, which existed for over two decades at SMM. The Aquinas Centre offers academic support to students in grades kindergarten through eighth for small group or one on one instruction in language arts or math. Students are eligible for support based on teacher recommendation or through independent educational evaluations. Certified teachers work directly with students within each grade level to provide extra academic support and strengthen the child's executive functioning skills.
The Aquinas Centre programming supports both a pull out and push in model, as students have dedicated time in the Aquinas Centre three times a week, but also benefit from an Aquinas teacher who offers in-classroom support during core subject teaching for each grade. Time spent in the Aquinas Centre is structured so that students are not pulled from class during core subjects, while additional Aquinas support in the classroom is available during core instructional time to maximize student engagement.
Staff in the Aquinas Centre work specifically with students in grades first through third using the Sonday System, a multisensory reading intervention program designed for emergent and reluctant readers. This program focuses on phonics using vowel pairs, consonant blends, and digraphs to explore spelling practices and the rules of language structure to strengthen reading and writing fluency.