Summer Academies

Description
Ross Creek provides professional direction and focus to help you realize your inner artist through both individual discipline work and collaboration with other young artists. The Academies are an immersive program, while demanding, provides a competition-free environment. An exceptional faculty works closely with each student, stressing individual growth while encouraging achievement and cooperation.
 The Academy encourages students to realise their dreams and gain the skills to do so while also making new friends from across Canada and the US who love the arts. All the academy programs run concurrently to encourage cross-disciplinary exchange and inspiration.
 The goal of the Academy is to provide students 14–18 years old with an intensive hands-on experience in the arts in an environment that emphasizes creativity and innovation while using constructive critiques by professional artist mentors  to assist in artistic growth.  Students enrol in one discipline as their core activity with focused collaboration projects across all disciplines to create original multidisciplinary work.   
Students have the opportunity to immerse themselves completely in the arts during the Summer Academy and the key to success in the program is to challenge yourself  and bring open-minded and energetic participation. Instructors expect to work with students of differing levels of experience. They ask for dedication to each student’s personal development in their chosen program in a nurturing atmosphere. To ensure each student's success, and so the faculty can ensure the best way of working with you, we ask for an application letter sent via email or fax and interview  and one creative piece, described below, from each academy applicant.

Culmination: Each session ends with an Open House from 2:30 p.m. to approximately 4:00 p.m. on the final Friday afternoon. The Open House features the work of all academy students. Parents and friends are invited to celebrate many of the finished works and works-in-progress that the academy students have created during the two weeks. Please sign our guest book, explore the professional gallery then help yourself to coffee or tea until the students invite you to be seated.
Academy program fees
Overnight students $950 + HST
Materials Fee: $75 + HST
(information on Dance Summer Dance on the Dance NS website)
Click here to request a Printable registration form.

Daily Schedule-Resident Campers
Overnight students check-in at 4 p.m. on Sunday afternoons.
Core Programs run from 9 a.m.–5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday. Lunch and break times are filled with recreational activities created by our great and inspired recreation and counselling staff. Campers meet at 8:00 a.m. at the Flag Pole for announcements, and either stay outside in nice weather or go into the RJ Owen studio for warm-up, then dispersing with their counsellors for 9:30 class time. Campers have a one-hour lunch break, from 12:00 p.m.– 1:30 p.m., plus a morning and afternoon snack break. Healthy snacks are provided by Ross Creek for campers during the afternoon break.
The afternoon session ends at 5:00 p.m. Campers have the option of returning to the cabin area for relaxation or can join in more recreation programming. There are evening arts sessions for Campers as well as after supper recreation programs including campfire. We ask that no evening activities be planned for campers during their academy week, since they will miss programs and project time.

Middle Weekend
The weekend in the middle of the program is a time for the campers to create and explore with a special trip that will bring amazing memories. The campers make a hike from Ross Creek to a nearby Boy Scout Camp and create new collaborative art projects based on their experiences. For mobility impaired students, please contact us to discuss options.

Final Performance and Gallery
While we want the campers to focus on the joy of creating, we also believe that sharing the work they have accomplished is an important part of the process. Each program ends with a final sharing of work, both performing and visual or literary. This final performance begins at 3:30 on the final Friday of their program and we ask that parents arrive at 3:15 to see their work if they are driving their child home. If the students are from other provinces or otherwise travelling by air, we will send a videotape of the performance and gallery to the parents at the conclusion of the program.

Student Pick-Up and Check-Out
Campers are free to be picked up by their parents at the conclusion of their final performance or culmination, and after they have been checked out of their cabins by their counsellors.  In general, cabin cleanup occurs on the final Thursday night before the end of the session. Most students depart on Friday.

Recreational Activities
All residential students participate in a relaxed and enteraining program of recreational activities organized and run by the counsellors. Game nights, short hikes, campfires, and dances are just some of the activities offered in the evenings.

Supervision
“All the counsellors rock!” – summer arts student
Campers are supervised by counsellors and a recreation director, and our counsellors are awesome! Most of our counsellors are college students or recent graduates with a major or strong interest in the arts. Counsellors are rigorously screened and interviewed before being hired. Counsellors are selected by the Education Director based on their arts experience, interest in working with young people, character references and interpersonal communication skills.

The Education Director runs a comprehensive 7-day training and orientation session for all counsellors prior to the beginning of the Summer Program. Topics covered during orientation include first aid, responsible counselling, conflict mediation, and campus safety. All resident Campers eat meals with their counsellors and participate in evening activities. Counsellors are the primary link between Campers and the Summer Program. Campers can feel free to approach their counsellors with questions, concerns, problems or just plain homesickness. Every effort is made to provide as much individual student-counsellor contact as possible.

Housing
There are four cabins with six bunk beds in each. Campers are housed by gender and age with 10 campers in each cabin. Two counsellors live in each cabin, and there are great and friendly cabin competitions and hosting of campfire.

Staying in touch
Campers are encouraged to contact their families via letter while they are in residence at the Summer Program. Each student will receive two postcards and stamps to use and are welcome to bring and use their own stationary. Similarly, we encourage parents to send letters, since we find letters and care packages to be a positive way of reminding your camper how much you love him/her with encouraging homesickness.

CELL PHONES
Camp is more than an activity vacation for the young artist. It is a chance for him or her to develop new friendships, new confidence and new independence, all in the context of nature and a highly interactive and stimulating arts program. Cell phones and social networking sites interfere with the benefits your child should be getting from camp. Please do not send a cell phone or internet accessing device with your child. If they do arrive with one, we will put it in our safe at check in and keep it for him or her for the duration of the Academy. The camp staff will call you if there is ever need to do so with any serious situation relating to your child’s health or well being. Parents are also urged NOT to call their children with non-emergency topics during the camp week. For emergencies, call the camp at the land line numbers listed above. Your understanding and cooperation is appreciated.

Meals
We have a full time chef onsite at Ross Creek. Meals are included in the fees for resident Campers. Ross Creek is proud to offer freshly prepared foods made from fresh local and organic ingredients whenever possible. Meals are served cafeteria-style in the outdoor dining hall. There are vegetarian options at every meal including a hot entree at every dinner. At breakfast there is a variety of cold choices and on some days also a variety of hot foods. For lunches there are a variety of meals, including make-it-yourself subs or wraps and sometimes hot soups.
For suppers, there is always a hot, nutritious and delicious meal, which might be lasagne, a barbecue, or a kid-friendly creation based on what is locally available or in our gardens.
An extensive salad bar featuring fresh fruits and vegetables is available at all lunches and dinners, many of them coming from our own organic gardens.
We do not use any peanut products in our own cooking and are pleased to cater for allergies with advance notice.

Tuck Shop
The Centre also offers a tuck shop which operates on a point and cash basis. Each camper is permitted to buy up to $2.00 of homemade or locally produced treats from the snack bar per day.

General Information
Click here for our policies. Please see the registration section or contact us for additional information about Centre’s location, transportation, suggestions for items to bring, discounts, scholarships and the Centre’s Code of Conduct.