Pearson Airport to Trinity College School

How does a boarder get from Pearson to Trinity 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; the VIA train stops at Port Hope a few times a day but starts at Union, not at Pearson, and no parent books it for a thirteen-year-old with a trunk. The chauffeur is the named adult, the car that ends at the house on the hill, and the two texts that tell the parents in Hong Kong or Mexico City that it worked. The pickup page explains the meeting points and the family and accessible page the unaccompanied-minor procedure; the Oshawa route page covers the first hour of the drive.

The school on the hill and its houses

Trinity College School occupies a campus on the hill on the north side of Port Hope, with the chapel and the main school around the quadrangle and the boarding houses — Bethune, Bickle, Brent, Burns, Hodgetts, Ketchum, Orchard and Rigby — around its edges, each with a door and a housemaster or housemistress in residence. The chauffeur enters at the Deblaquire Street gate, follows the campus 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 Port Hope, Cobourg and Newcastle who fly in with their families are an ordinary Northumberland 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 ninety-minute drive, with a stop at the Port Hope service centre if the child wants one, and the chauffeur does not leave until the house has taken them in.

The boarding calendar and the trips it makes

A TCS 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, 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. TCS's boarders come from thirty countries and the profile holds each family's pattern — the family in Bermuda that flies for every long weekend, the family in Beijing that flies twice a year with a guardian in Toronto in between, an hour's run down the 401. The departures page explains the earlier check-in cut-offs for an unaccompanied minor.

Parents' weekends, graduation and the Northumberland visit

Parents fly in for the October parents' weekend, the December carol service, the spring events and the June graduation, and a TCS visit is a Northumberland weekend: the hotels are the Waddell in Port Hope on the river, the Best Western and the Holiday Inn Express in Cobourg ten minutes east, and the Ste. Anne's spa in Grafton for parents who want 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, Port Hope's main street and the Ganaraska, the Cobourg beach, the Northumberland hills and the Rice Lake shore, or — for a family that has flown from overseas — a day in Toronto at the ROM and the AGO or the Thousand Islands an hour and a half east. 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

TCS's teams travel — hockey, rugby, soccer, basketball, the rowing crews — and the exchange programmes with schools in Britain, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand 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 to Pearson. The admissions families touring from overseas and the alumni events bring the adult traffic on the same fare, and the school's summer programmes bring groups through Pearson in July.

What the fare includes

The fare from Pearson to Trinity College School is fixed by vehicle class for the Port Hope 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 housemaster's sign-out

A TCS boarder from one of the school's thirty countries holds a study permit that names a custodian in Canada, and most families also have a guardian — a relative in the city, a TCS family in Port Hope or Cobourg, a guardian service — who takes the boarder for closed weekends when the houses on the hill 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 an hour down the 401 on a Friday afternoon and back on Sunday evening, often booked as a standing order. The housemaster or housemistress signs 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 on the 401 east

The 401 east of Oshawa in January crosses open country where the snow drifts off the lake, and the hill up to the school from Port Hope is the last stretch to be plowed. A boarder who left Hong Kong or Mexico City 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 drives the ninety minutes on winter tyres with the 407 across the city and the 401 east, stopping at the Port Hope service centre if the child needs it. 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 Trinity College School