Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute

International Baccalaureate (IB) Program The Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute is one of the few high schools in the Upper Grand District School Board to offer the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme. The IB program is an enriched academic program designed for motivated students who want a more challenging and globally focused education.

Specialist High Skills Major (SHSM) GCVI offers the Specialist High Skills Major (SHSM) program for students in Grades 11 and 12. It is a Ministry of Education–approved program that lets students specialize in a specific career sector while still earning their Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD).

Cooperative Education (Co-op) GCVI offers co-op placements where students earn credits through real-world work experience. These placements can be connected to SHSM sectors or taken independently to explore career interests.

The high school which eventually became known as the Guelph Collegiate and Vocational Institute (GCVI) was founded in the early-mid-19th century by John Galt, also the founder of Guelph, Ontario (1827). The school was originally housed in a large four window log building known as "the Priory"; itself one of the first buildings constructed in Guelph. In 1854 the school moved to its current site on Paisley Road due to the construction of the Grand Trunk Railway.

The original building on the new site was torn down after a few decades and a new school constructed. Eventually a wooden gymnasium was added in 1886, and the school remained the same until 1906, when a large new wing was added to the left of the bell tower.

Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute had Canada's first high school lunch cafeteria.

By this time the school was developing a reputation second to none in the province. Finally, by the nineteen twenties there were serious problems with overcrowding. In 1923 a new building opened (constructed at a cost of $400,000) that included modern plumbing, a massive skylight covering the large, two story, open auditorium area. It was called the most modern and upscale school building in Ontario.

The older buildings were connected to the school and used periodically before they were torn down in 1962 to facilitate several more additions including a modern gym, business and science wing, and tech wings.

Accomplished alumni include: Col. John McCrae (Author of "In Flanders Fields."), Hugh C. Guthrie (Canadian federal opposition leader, leader of the Conservative Party), Ed Joliffe (one of three GCVI Rhodes Scholars and founder of the Ontario CCF, and opposition leader in the Ontario House), George Alexander Drew (Mayor of Guelph, Premier of Ontario, Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons, Leader of the Conservative Party, Ambassador to the UK, founding chairman of the Ontario Securities Commission, World War I hero), and Donna Strickland (Nobel Physics laureate).

A bronze plaque memorial to Col John McCrae was erected by the Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute.^[1]

The Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute consists of four main buildings.

Building A (the Old Building) consists of three levels. The bottom level holds the visual arts department, computer technology department, chemistry department and a general sciences department. The floor above holds the guidance department, main office, geography department, math department, hairstyling and aesthetics department, and an auditorium that extends up into the top floor. The top floor holds the English department, family studies department and the biology department.

Building B (the New Building) has three levels as well. The business and economics departments, as well as the physics department and the nurse's office, are located on the lowest floor. A computer education department is located on the second level. The history and current languages departments are on the upper floor.

Building C is divided into two floors. Three distinct gymnasiums are located on the first floor. The cafeteria of the school is above the gymnasium on the second floor.

Building D consists two floors as well, housing the school's technology and music departments. There are nine separate shops in the technological sector. They include: integrated technology, transportation technology, manufacturing technology, construction technology, communication technology, technological design, computer engineering technology and computer information science.

The Old Building of the Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute consists of building styles that are unique only to that school in the City of Guelph. The original oak doors are still present from the building's original construction in 1923. Marble and granite encase all of the hallway floors throughout The Old Building. The hallways on the main floor of The Old Building measure an outstanding 18 ft. in height. The main entrance way into the school is surrounded by a large archway. It is easy to see the vast number of students who have walked the halls of G.C.V.I. as there are large indents that have been left in the granite stairways of the school from many thousands of feet walking up and down them each day.

In the Ontario provincial elections of 1943, 1945 and 1948, both the premier George Alexander Drew and Opposition Leader Edward Bigelow (Ted) Jolliffe were former GCVI Students, so regardless of who won the election the Premier of Ontario would have been a GCVI alumnus.^[2]

• Education in Ontario
• List of secondary schools in Ontario