Alumni

Cultivating our Grade 12s as Alumni of the School

The move from Grade 12 to post-secondary education is a huge milestone in a student’s life. TMS recognizes that the change is not as simple as moving from a school to a university, but one that comes with many aspects. As a school, TMS has begun to focus for this transition of our graduating students at the start of the Grade 12 year. The graduating class is first surveyed at the beginning of the year to get a better understanding about the kind of support they would like to receive from the school. They will be surveyed again after they graduate and asked for feedback about whether the program helped meet their needs, areas of possible improvement, and other areas of support they think they may need once they are in university.

Over the course of the year, the school has focused on sessions such as a financial literacy program to help students learn how to budget, do their taxes, and other real life financial skills; an Alumni panel discussing what to expect in the first year of university; a speed mentoring session; and a breakfast with the Head of School in their smaller Advisory groups to get their feedback about their TMS experience and possible future plans. In the future, we may look at additional sessions such as basic cooking and life skills to prepare our young alumni for life away from home.

The ability to support our Grade 12 students will be driven by our students’ needs and feedback, so the focus of these sessions will be specific to each graduating class. The Guidance team and Grade Advisors play a key role in helping to develop this program as they have supported our students throughout their time at the Upper School.