Pearson Airport to Lakefield College School

How does a boarder get from Pearson to Lakefield College School?

The alternatives for an unaccompanied minor are the airline's unaccompanied-minor service, which hands the child 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; there is no train to Peterborough and no bus a parent would book for a thirteen-year-old with a trunk. The chauffeur is the named adult, the car that ends at the house on the lake, and the two texts that tell the parents in Mexico City or Hong Kong that it worked. The pickup page explains the meeting points and the family and accessible page the unaccompanied-minor procedure; the Trent University page covers the same road as far as Peterborough.

The campus on the lake and its houses

Lakefield College School occupies a campus on the east shore of Lake Katchewanooka on the north edge of the village of Lakefield, with the main school and the chapel on the hill and the boarding houses — Colebrook, Cooper, Grove, Matthews, Moodie, Memorial, Rashleigh, Ryder, Uplands and Wadsworth — spread along the shore and the hillside, each with a door and a house staff in residence. The chauffeur enters at the campus gate, follows the drive to the boarder's house, brings the bags to the door and waits until the house staff have taken the boarder in; the parents' text goes at that moment. On term-start days the houses have their own arrival windows and the drive is marshalled; on others the reception at the main school directs the chauffeur. Day students living in Lakefield, Peterborough and the Kawartha villages who fly in with their families are an ordinary Peterborough-area address at the same fare.

The unaccompanied minor: how the handover works

An airline's unaccompanied-minor service escorts a child through the arrival, immigration and the baggage hall and hands them 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 is inside the hall with a name board and identification when the escort brings the child through, and the handover is signed. From that moment the child is with a named, licensed, vetted chauffeur the school and the parents know, in a car with the door-to-door confirmation for the two-hour drive, with a stop on the way if the child wants one, and the chauffeur does not leave until the house has taken them in — a two-hour drive with a thirteen-year-old who has just flown from Mexico is a drive the chauffeur makes gently, with the parents' text at the door as the finish.

The boarding calendar and the trips it makes

A Lakefield boarding year is a calendar of airport trips: the arrival in the first week of September, Thanksgiving, the closed weekends when the houses empty, the December departure in the week before Christmas and the January return, the March break — often a ski trip from the school rather than a flight — Easter, and the June departure with a year's belongings and the trunk. 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. The school's outdoor programme adds its own trips — the canoe expeditions, the Algonquin trips, the winter camping — that begin and end at the campus, and a boarder whose family comes to collect them for a Kawartha weekend is a short local fixed fare. The departures page explains the earlier check-in cut-offs for an unaccompanied minor.

Parents' weekends, graduation and the Kawartha visit

Parents fly in for the October parents' weekend, the December events, the spring regatta and the June graduation, and a Lakefield visit is a Kawartha weekend: the hotels are the Holiday Inn on the river in Peterborough twenty minutes south, the Best Western on Lansdowne Street, and the lakeside resorts — Elmhirst's on Rice Lake, the Viamede on Stony Lake — for a family that wants the country. 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 village of Lakefield, the Peterborough Lift Lock and the Canoe Museum, Stony Lake and the Kawartha villages, or — for a family that has flown from overseas — Algonquin Park two hours north. Graduation in June is the largest version — grandparents, the trunk, the flight home the same evening — and the family car waits on the campus drive.

Sport, tournaments and the school's traffic

Lakefield's teams travel — hockey, rugby, soccer, basketball, the rowing crews on the lake and the Nordic ski team — and the exchange programmes with schools in Britain, Australia, Germany and Argentina bring visiting pupils to Pearson as a group: 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. A visiting team of twenty books the same way; the school's own teams book the reverse. The admissions families touring from overseas and the alumni events bring the adult traffic on the same fare, and the school's summer programmes on the lake bring groups through Pearson in July.

What the fare includes

The fare from Pearson to Lakefield College School is fixed by vehicle class for the Lakefield address and includes the chauffeur, the vehicle, fuel, the 407 toll, taxes, curbside pickup at the pre-arranged area for a boarder travelling with a parent, a stop on the way 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.

Custodians, guardians and the house's sign-out on the lake

A Lakefield boarder from Mexico, Hong Kong, Germany or Bermuda holds a study permit that names a custodian in Canada, and most families also have a guardian — a relative in the city, a Lakefield family in Peterborough or the Kawarthas, a guardian service — who takes the boarder for closed weekends when the houses on the lake empty. The family's profile carries the boarding house, the guardian's home and the airport, and any leg between them is a fixed fare from the same confirmation; a guardian in the city is two hours down the 115 and the 407 on a Friday afternoon and back on Sunday evening, often booked as a standing order. The house staff sign a boarder 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 to the Kawarthas

The 115 north of the 407 in January crosses the snowbelt above Lake Ontario, and the last twenty minutes on County Road 29 from Peterborough to Lakefield are a country road that drifts. A boarder who left Mexico City the previous evening lands at Pearson in the first week of January into a squall at minus twenty, and the chauffeur has read Ontario 511 before leaving, has a warm car at the pre-arranged area, and drives the two hours on winter tyres with a stop in Peterborough if the child needs it and the house told when the car leaves the 115. A flight diverted by weather is rebooked by the airline for the next day; the chauffeur is re-timed at no charge, and the house and the parents are both told. The same name board meets the new flight.

Book Pearson to Lakefield College School