TFS - Canada's International School

SENIOR SCHOOL Outstanding Results from the Concours Castor SENIOR SCHOOL Best Buddies for Life SENIOR SCHOOL Holocaust Memorial: A Visit from Andy Réti SENIOR SCHOOL Ravine Stewardship Team Acorn Planting During the fall of 2023, the Senior School Ravine Stewardship Team worked diligently to advance the Toronto Tree Cover Project and help local nurseries. Forest consultant Eric Davies played an important role as our students collected acorns to increase, restore and ensure the biodiversity of the tree canopy in the City of Toronto. The initiative led the team (under the mentorship of Dr. Tamara Smith) to be featured in Canadian Geographic magazine, where the article showcased our student-led collecting and sorting and detailed how the team provided acorns to the conservation program as well as to a number of nurseries engaged in preserving the beautiful, native tree canopy that surrounds us. The Math Concours Castor competition is an international competition that was created in France in 2011, which aims to introduce young students to computer science and information technology. The competition, lasting 45 minutes and comprising 10 interactive questions, is practised beforehand with teacher coordinators. In fall 2023, a total of 688,837 students representing 3,810 schools from across the francophone world participated. At TFS, the top two to three students in each of Grades 4 through 7 and Levels I and II produced outstanding results, with some ranking in the top 1–5% of their grade category, an extraordinary accomplishment and a reflection of our teaching and learning. A long-established tradition at TFS, the Best Buddies Club works to create long-lasting friendships between TFS students and students from Sir William Osler (SWO) High School, which is focused on the education of students with developmental disabilities. Students at TFS are paired with students from SWO, and they spend time together doing various activities. This fall, the TFS students made their yearly visit to SWO, where most met their buddies for the first time. For some, though, it was a reunion, as they got reacquainted with their buddies from last year. Our students gained a fresh perspective touring the school and learning about the classes that the SWO students take and the services provided to them. In January, we were honoured to welcome special guest Andy Réti to speak at the Senior School, in recognition of the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust. As a child survivor of the Holocaust, Mr. Réti shared his remarkable story of love, survival and resilience with our students. We were deeply moved by his firsthand accounts, especially as Mr. Réti is one of the few remaining survivors still with us today. During the assembly, some of our students also had the chance to share their own family stories of the Holocaust. The transmission of these stories from generation to generation keeps alive the memory of not just family members but of entire societies, so our students can help shape a world that can unreservedly say "never again." 7 TFS

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