Walking into the grade one classroom at Mount Saint Agnes Academy (MSA) feels a bit like stumbling into a budding start-up company.Colourful pictures don the walls, while students gather excitedly around the SMART Board as one of their peers manipulates colourful shapes to create a pattern. With her right index finger she slides the blue triangle next to the green circle, completing the ten-item row. Applause resounds from the onlookers and the room feels more like a brainstorming meeting in which the idea for Facebook was created than the chalkboard lectures of yesteryear.And that is because the learning does focus on a collaborative approach, one in which the students are encouraged, through inquiry, to problem solve. It is a style in which the way the child thinks is just as important, if not more, as the content he or she is taught.Using the Alberta Curriculum, one of the world’s leading internationally recognised systems of learning, MSA’s student-centred approach ensures a global education in which students develop to the best of their abilities. The curriculum truly is global with accredited international schools in China, Hong Kong, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Mexico.More impressive, however, than the countries in which the curriculum is now taught are the student results: in the test results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which is administered by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Alberta placed in the top in reading, science and math out of 65 countries.MSA’s curriculum is based on the philosophy that students must be problem solvers, community citizens and global thinkers. While it has always remained dedicated to offering a “faith-based, values-added education,” MSA serves to deliver on its new curriculum’s philosophy through smaller class sizes from Kindergarten to Grade 12.The intellectual, social, and emotional development that MSA’s students receive is consistent from elementary to high school. In fact, it is the only school on the Island to offer a continuous curriculum, which culminates in its graduates receiving the Alberta High School Diploma. In its first year of accreditation, 97 percent of the 2013 class successfully completed it.Mount Saint Agnes Academy has been committed to developing the whole child for 124 years since the Sisters of Charity arrived on the Island in 1890. While it has maintained its strong Christian identity through faith and learning, MSA has adapted to serve students for the demands they will face in today and tomorrow’s society. As an Alberta Accredited International School, MSA is allowing students to learn locally and excel globally.