Vianney Academy is a small school making a big difference. We are a registered private school for Junior Kindergarten to Grade 8 in Mississauga, with an alternative high school day program for Grades 9 to 12, for children with special needs and learning challenges.

Whether your child is an atypical learner, has learning challenges, or has special or exceptional needs, Vianney is a safe, nurturing place to learn. Small classes let us give each student the support they need and connect them with peers who are just like them.

How we teach

• A plan for each child. After an initial assessment, parents work with an instructor to choose the curriculum that best suits their child. We cover the core subjects of the Ontario curriculum and explore each student’s own goals and interests.
• At their own pace. Students work independently with support from their teachers and peers, building independence, social skills and a culture of mutual encouragement.
• Therapies that help them learn. Therapies are tailored to improve executive motor skills, memory, processing speed and self-regulation.
• Teachers and home educators. Our instructors are a combination of teachers and home educators.

Our philosophy

Our mission is to teach our students with passion and encourage them every step of the way, fostering a love of learning through discovery.

Our story

Founder Karen Uschold began teaching children with disabilities out of necessity. Her daughter was diagnosed with dyslexia at age seven. Three years later, her younger son was diagnosed with autism. Unwilling to accept the bleak futures that doctors, social workers and therapists painted for her children, she researched teaching techniques and therapies that would help. Her success drew the attention of other parents in her homeschool community, and before long she was tutoring children full time.

In early 2011, she met a teenage boy with a learning disability who suffered from depression and anxiety. The public school system could not give him the special education and emotional support he needed, and Children’s Aid had deemed him “at risk”. To raise the funds to help him, Karen founded Vianney as a non-profit organization. She tutored him full time through his high school courses and worked with professionals in the community to teach him ways to cope with his anxiety and depression. Today he is a productive member of society.

Vianney grew as an independent learning centre offering hourly, part-time and full-time tutoring, educational therapies, workshops, and parental support and respite. In 2016 it became a recognized private school, which opened its services to more families and to children of all learning abilities, including gifted students and those with dyslexia, ADD, ADHD, autism and global learning disorder.

In August 2018, Vianney Academy took over the main operations. The non-profit, now called Vianney Community Works (formerly Vianney Charitable Works), turned to supporting Vianney families with financial aid. Together they pursue one mission: meeting each student’s educational, physical, emotional and social needs to maximize their learning potential.

How Vianney is organized

Vianney Community Works is the non-profit partner of Vianney Academy. The two work in tandem to provide elementary and high school education, tutoring and camps. Because we believe quality education should be accessible to all students, Vianney Community Works offers scholarships and bursaries to families of students at Vianney Academy.

Vianney Community Works is the name we use for our non-profit, Vianney Academy of Learning Inc.

*Vianney Academy is a small education centre operating on a learning pod model. It is a registered private school for JK to Grade 8 only. For Grades 9 to 12, Vianney operates as a tutoring centre.

What brings you here today?