Branksome Hall - Review #1

I went to an all girls school which is very but but not old when you see it. The school colors are red and green and black and white which sounds like Christmas but works somehow. It sits on 13 acres in Rosedale with this ravine cutting right through the middle of campus and there is a path back there where you can stand and not hear a single car.

The best thing that happened to me was that summer at Holland Bloorview and that girl who could not speak. I thought I was there to help her but she was the one teaching me about patience and about listening without ears and about the fact that a kid in a wheelchair still wants to laugh and go fast and hear the same song twelve times in a row. I still think about her all the time.

I should have used the woodshop in iCAST because I walked past it every day for two years and never touched a saw once. I should have tried rowing for one season just to see the sun rise over the lake. I also should have gone to office hours more often because my teachers were sitting there waiting and I was too proud to show up. My advice is that the IB will try to break you so let it and then rebuild yourself with the help of the people who are paid to help you and do not try to do it alone.

What I miss most is the ravine path at golden hour when the light slanted through the trees and the city noise faded behind me. A thirteen acre campus in the middle of Toronto with its own forest is not normal and I did not know how rare that was until I left and tried to find a quiet spot in a city park and heard sirens the whole time.

Go to the ravine when your brain gets too loud and just stand there for a while. The saltwater pools are warm which is unusual for school pools. The fitness centre has a pull up bar that I never saw anyone use so you should be the first. And if you are struggling with the IB, walk to the woodlot first and then go to office hours in that order.

Branksome is a full IB school which means every subject pushes you and the teachers know where you are going to struggle before you do. I made Ontario Scholar which sounds impressive but just means I had no social life for two years straight. The iCAST building had a woodshop that I walked past every day and never went inside and I still think about that.

I swam laps when my brain got stuck on a problem because the water makes everything feel softer and quieter. I tried rowing once on Lake Ontario and got up at five in the morning for a week before deciding that sleep was more important than sunrise. The fitness centre was small but it did the job when I needed to burn off IB stress.

I joined Concert Choir because a friend dragged me and stayed because singing with forty other girls feels different than anything else even when you are not very good at it. The drama kids put on shows twice a year and I watched from the audience feeling jealous of how comfortable they looked on stage.

I spent Tuesday nights as a Girl Guides junior leader teaching Brownies how to tie knots and sing campfire songs and clean up after themselves. I also helped with the youth program at my church on Sundays which meant coffee in the basement and kids running around while their parents sat in the pews looking exhausted.

I was a day student so I did not board but my friend Chloe lived in the boarding house and I stayed over sometimes on weekends. The common room had old couches that everyone fought over and someone was always heating up soup at ten o'clock at night. The boarders had their own inside jokes that day kids like me could not crack and I envied how close they were.

The dining hall opened onto a terrace and I sat outside whenever the weather let me. The food was fine but nothing special and some days you looked forward to lunch and some days you just ate because you had to. The best meals were after swim practice when the dining staff would give you extra without being asked.

Branksome sits in Rosedale which is full of big old houses and quiet streets with the subway rumbling underground a few blocks away. The ROM was a fifteen minute walk and the AGO was close too but the best part of campus was the ravine path winding through cedars and mossy logs. You would forget you were in a city until you turned a corner and saw the school rooftop again.

All girls school means nobody is performing for boys so you argue louder and laugh harder and cry in front of each other more than you would in a mixed school. My closest friend was a boarder from Hong Kong who taught me how to make dumplings during study hall while I taught her how to complain about Canadian winters. The school has just over nine hundred kids which is small enough that everyone knows your name by grade ten.