Pearson Airport to Branksome Hall

How does a boarder get from Pearson to Branksome Hall?

The alternatives for an unaccompanied girl are the airline's unaccompanied-minor service, which hands her to a named adult at the arrivals door and no further, and the school's arranged transport on the busiest days, which the school coordinates and which this service is often part of. The chauffeur is the named adult, the car that ends at the boarding house, and the two texts that tell the parents in Seoul that it worked. The pickup page explains the meeting points and the family and accessible page the unaccompanied-minor procedure.

The school, the boarding houses and the door

Branksome Hall's campus is in Rosedale on Elm Avenue and Mount Pleasant Road, on the edge of the ravine, with the senior school on Elm Avenue, the junior school across the road and the athletics centre on the Mount Pleasant side. The boarding houses are on the campus's ravine side, reached from Elm Avenue — a narrow residential street where the chauffeur stops at the house door in the drop-off zone and never on Mount Pleasant Road, which is a no-stopping arterial. The boarding staff meet arrivals at the house on term-start days and the reception on Elm Avenue directs the chauffeur on others; the chauffeur brings the bags to the door and waits until the boarder has been taken in. Day girls living in Rosedale, Moore Park and Leaside who fly in with their families are an ordinary Toronto address at the same fare.

The unaccompanied minor: how the handover works

An airline's unaccompanied-minor service escorts a girl through the arrival, immigration and the baggage hall and hands her at the arrivals door to the adult named on the form, who must show identification. The chauffeur is that adult: the parents put the chauffeur's name on the airline form (we send it the day before), the chauffeur — a female chauffeur when the parents ask, which many do — is inside the hall with a name board and identification when the escort brings her through, and the handover is signed. From that moment she is with a named, licensed, vetted chauffeur the school and the parents know, and the chauffeur does not leave until the boarding staff have taken her in at the house. For a girl over the airline's escort age the same meet and greet does the same job without the form.

The IB calendar and the trips it makes

Branksome Hall is an International Baccalaureate school, and its calendar has the IB's rhythm: the September arrival, Thanksgiving, the closed weekends, the December departure and the January return, the March break, and — for the senior girls — the May IB examinations followed by the June departure with a year's belongings. Each is a fixed fare with the flight tracked, booked by the parents from the confirmation of the last; the December and June departures carry the trunk and the vehicle is sized for it. A boarder whose family is in Nassau or Bermuda flies home for every long weekend; one whose family is in Seoul flies twice a year with a guardian's house in between, and the profile holds each family's pattern. The departures page explains the earlier check-in cut-offs for an unaccompanied minor.

Parents' weekends, graduation and the visit

Parents fly in for the October parents' weekend, the December events, the spring musical and the June graduation, and the hotels for a Branksome visit are the Yorkville hotels ten minutes west — the Four Seasons, the Hazelton, the Park Hyatt — or the Kimpton Saint George on Yonge. The Friday arrival from Pearson and the Sunday departure are two fixed fares on one confirmation; the weekend is a chauffeured block with the boarder collected at the house: the school's events, the ROM and the AGO, a walk in the ravine, a dinner on Yonge Street in Summerhill, or Niagara Falls for a family that has flown from overseas. Graduation in June is the largest version — grandparents, the trunk, the flight home the same evening — and the family car waits on Elm Avenue.

Sport, tournaments and the school's traffic

Branksome's teams and programmes travel — the hockey, rowing and swimming tournaments, the debating trips, the exchange programmes with schools in Australia, Britain and South Africa whose visiting pupils arrive at Pearson as a group — and a visiting group of twenty arrives on the same flight, is met at the group meeting point inside the terminal and driven in the Sprinter on one manifest to the school, invoiced to the school on a corporate account. The school's visiting speakers, the admissions families touring from overseas and the alumnae events bring the adult traffic on the same fare.

From the school: siblings, the city and the province

Branksome Hall is fifteen minutes from Upper Canada College and from Havergal, and a family with children at two schools books both drops on one confirmation. The chauffeur is also the connection to the province on a long weekend: the Muskoka lakes two hours north, Blue Mountain for a March-break ski weekend, the Stratford Festival in summer. Within the city, Rosedale is ten minutes from Yorkville and from the subway at Summerhill, and a boarder's guardian in Toronto is an address on the same profile.

What the fare includes

The fare from Pearson to Branksome Hall is fixed by vehicle class for the Elm Avenue address and includes the chauffeur, the vehicle, fuel, tolls, taxes, curbside pickup at the pre-arranged area for a boarder travelling with a parent, and the included waiting with the flight tracked. Meet and greet inside the arrivals hall with a name board is the one paid add-on, and for an unaccompanied minor it is the service; gratuity is never added; a cancellation before dispatch is free; the parents receive the confirmation, the chauffeur's name and vehicle the day before, and the two texts on the day.

Custodianship, the guardian and Rosedale's sign-out

A Branksome boarder from Seoul, Nassau or Mexico City holds a study permit that names a custodian in Canada, and nearly every family also has a guardian in the city — often a Branksome alumna's family in Rosedale or Moore Park, sometimes a guardian service — who takes the girl for the closed weekends when the houses on Elm Avenue empty. The family's profile carries the boarding house, the guardian's home and the airport, and the leg between any two of them is a fixed fare booked from the same confirmation; the Friday-afternoon run from Elm Avenue to the guardian's door and the Sunday-evening return are often a standing order. The house signs a girl out for a chauffeured departure against the parents' written authorisation, which the school holds, and we send the chauffeur's name, photograph and vehicle to the house the day before. The school's CAIS accreditation sets the standard the sign-out follows.

The January return through the ravines

Rosedale in January is beautiful and treacherous: the ravine roads ice first and the Bayview extension is the one route into the neighbourhood that the plows reach last. A girl who left Seoul the previous evening lands at Pearson in the first week of January into a squall, and the chauffeur has read Ontario 511 before leaving, has a warm car at the pre-arranged area, and takes the 401 and Mount Pleasant Road rather than the Gardiner and the Bayview extension when the ravine is icing. A flight diverted by weather to Montréal or Ottawa is rebooked by the airline for the next day; the chauffeur is re-timed to the new flight at no charge, and the boarding house and the parents are both told. The same name board meets the new flight.

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