Yesterday involved a lot of planning and room juggling on the part of Sandra, the hostel manager.
We had a booking of 51 students and four teachers for one night. The group was arriving from Locherby Composite School in Sudbury, Ontario. It’s a small mining community about four hours north of Toronto.
The students were here on a cultural excursion and visited the Art Gallery of Ontario (that recently underwent a massive addition and redesign by the world famous architect, Frank Gehry) the CN Tower and the Royal Ontario Museum.
When the students arrived, the staff was bracing for a possible rough ride with fifty one teenagers on an overnight excursion.
Rough ride? It never happened! The group was amazingly well-behaved which is a tribute to both the students and the teachers/chaperones. I even spoke to their bus driver who said they were no problem at all.
Our night man James avers that the night passed quietly and uneventfully. According to him, the Locherbie students were one of the best behaved school groups we have ever hosted.
It seems as if we had known a little about Lokerby School we might not have been surprised. By all reports, it is a pretty forward thinking institution and had instituted some far sighted educational programs.
It was the first school in Onrario to implement the use of laptops by students in the classroom. And introduced the Science and Technology Education Program (STEP) that is open to students from anywhere in the Sudbury District (utilizing an ambitious busing program).
We all hope that Locherbie High sends us more groups of their excellent young ambassadors. And to all of our Locherbie student guests, we hope you had a pleasant stay.
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A group of Lockerby students enjoying our free pancake breakfast,