The Sterling Hall School

I attended SHS from JK to Grade 8 and graduated a few years ago. I'd like to anonymously share my personal experience at the school. From JK - Grade 3 there is a heavy emphasis on discipline and respect - so much so that many younger students complained about this back when I attended those grades. I found that students with parents on the board of directors typically were treated better, and got prefect and head boy roles more often as they came and went. From Grade 4 - 6, I was able to see the absolute inability the school's faculty has to properly discipline students. I saw a teacher get fired for his inability to discipline one individual - to the point where my parents applied me for other private schools in retaliation to the school's inability to properly discipline students. In the Intermediate Years, (Grade 6-8) the emphasis is fully on leadership and accountability. Our class one year created a SMS group chat which produced toxic conversations between individuals, but not to the point of bullying or harassment. The teachers threatened students involved with the police speaking to them and their parents, and left multiple kids crying home in fear of prosecution or in-school suspension. In the end, the teachers admitted they NEVER contacted police in the first place, and left multiple parents shaking their heads. That year, a disciplinary measure called 'On-Call' was introduced to us that essentially forced students to be pulled out of class and forced to email their parents and teacher an embarrasing message explaining what they 'did' or 'didn't' do. Even if an action wasn't done, a message still had to be sent. I never had to go to 'On-Call' but I've seen emails of innocent students being sent out. Remember, the teacher must APPROVE the message before it is sent. The biggest weakness of SHS is it's IT and technology dept. In SHS, holding a phone out, even after school, or even at your locker would get it taken overnight and a message home. The school treats mobile phones like a weapon and it has been that way for a while. I have seen students get sent to 'On-Call' for simply tinkering with another student's computer mouse. In the recent years, the school has fully BANNED any outside laptops and forces students to use slow and outdated chromebooks that can be tracked from the cloud. In my final year, I saw extremely unjust English / Humanities courses that were extremely woke / liberal that made any conservative or right-leaning student to think twice before raising their hand in class. I felt this way my entire time in the intermediate grades and I felt very excluded. I've also seen the school show the younger students about LGBTQ+ which I think is absolutely outrageous to show children topics about sexual preference and identity. Beyond that, in my final year at SHS I took the ES course (Earth Science). The class requires you to look at nature and take pictures of it, and have a discussion about basic science already taught in years prior. I went into Grade 9 at public school nearly failing science because what we were taught in ES had ZERO correlation to what we were to learn in high school, despite the class being advertised as doing so. Overall, what you put into your SHS experience is NOT what you get out of it, and I'd like to use this review as a tool for parents to understand the internal structure of the school.

Just moved to Toronto and our son is doing well here. Has a good reputation recently apparently due to the new principal. Update. Our son loved the school and our other friend's boys have as well. It has a great family community, more so than other Toronto schools we attend and hear about.

A school that claims a lot but delivers very little. There are a few good teachers. There might be some hope of improvement in the quality of teaching since there is a newish principal but my time there was wasted. It wasn't the worst school in the universe but they brag about things that never happen or they tell you things that aren't exactly consistent with good character when they are the ones preaching character education. That was a huge joke to me. Overall, it seems best as pre-school. They don't know how to do junior high or prepare you for high school. Then they will write all about the STEPS program. That was a big joke but they gave us free food for participating. You can find way better schools for your kids no matter what their needs. There are other boys schools, small schools, schools that actually teach you something.

Great staff and teachers. My two sons look forward to attending school everyday. Great facilities . Teachers really care about their students ..

Has some great teachers, but most are just teaching the curriculum without any input.