Forest Manor Public School
Forest Manor Public School
Part of the Pack
Forest Manor Public School is located on the southeast side of the Don Mills Rd. and Sheppard Ave. East intersection. The immediate area is comprised of rental and condominium high-rise apartment buildings and townhouses. The school first opened 40 years ago and includes a new addition with eight classrooms and two seminar rooms. The school serves over 740 students representing almost 50 different languages. Almost two-thirds of the students speak English as a second language.
The El-Ad group is redeveloping the area around the school. Over the next 10 years, several existing buildings will be demolished and replaced with new condominium towers and townhouses. A community centre, housing a daycare, will also be built.
Excellence, Opportunity, & Caring School
Forest Manor's vision is comprised of three key areas:
1) Academic excellence is our main focus, with an emphasis on reading, writing, and mathematics. Teachers provide students with specific learning goals, success criteria, and descriptive feedback in order for students to learn effectively.
2) Our second priority is providing students with a wide range of opportunities to be successful and to develop holistically.
3) Our third priority involves providing a safe and caring learning environment that involves parents and the wider school community.
Resource Centre
Forest Manor has a very unique Special Education/ESL Resource Reception Centre. The Centre includes Resource teachers assigned to support students in each grade, ESL teachers who provide a reception program for students with little or no English and a Learning Disability teacher for students in the junior grades. Forest Manor has an Educational Assistant who implements "Talking for Literacy," an oral language program for students in Grade 1.
Early Learning Supports
Forest Manor participates in the "Kindergarten Early Language Intervention (KELI) Program," an oral language and early literacy development program for SK students and the "Welcome to Kindergarten Program," a workshop designed to help newly registered JK students develop school readiness skills and to provide each family with a bag of materials (e.g., playdoh, scissors).
Reading Initiatives
Forest Manor encourages reading outside of classroom time in a number of ways. Teachers promote reading at home through the use of Book Bags, Reading Logs, and Reading Response Journals. There are clubs such as Silver Birch and Silver Birch Express as well as the Accelerated Reader Program which allows students to choose books and take quizzes on the computer.
Settlement and Education Partnership
Forest Manor is involved in the Settlement and Education Partnerships in Toronto (SEPT). The program aims at connecting families to settlement services in the community and the School Board and hopes to promote student performance by facilitating the settlement and integration of newcomer families into Canadian society.
Community Use of School
Forest Manor is in use 7 days a week by groups that permit the school (Canadian Bureau for the Advancement of Music, Parks & Recreation, Tai Chi, Agincourt Pentecostal Church, Toronto Hawks, Scouts About). Also, every spring the whole school community comes together for Arts Night.
