Fall Trips Build Belonging at St. George’s

At the start of the school year, before the routines of the new term have fully settled, our High School students spend their first days somewhere else entirely: a farm in Tadoussac, a surf pool in Brossard, a canyon trail near Quebec City, a stage in Stratford. It looks like adventure. It is also, deliberately, the beginning of belonging.

Why We Begin This Way

New classes. New teachers. New expectations, and often, new friendships to build. True to our belief in learning by doing, St. George’s sends every High School grade out into the world together in the first week of September.

The thinking behind this is grounded in something more than tradition. In the 2025 OxWell Student Survey, researchers at the University of Oxford asked more than 35,000 students aged 9 to 18 what made them feel most connected to their school community. School trips ranked first, chosen by 58% of students, ahead of after-school activities and special events. That held true across every group researchers examined, including students who reported loneliness or higher absence rates.

“When students feel part of their school community, they are also more likely to thrive.”

— Professor Mina Fazel, Chair of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Oxford

We’ve said before that a student takes on real academic risk, trying and possibly failing, only once they feel known and safe. Our beginning-of-year trips are where that groundwork gets laid.

Read the full story: Another Year of Discovery Begins >

A Trip for Every Grade

Each grade’s trip is shaped around what students need at that stage of their journey through St. George’s. Grade 7 students open their first year at the High School with a three-day leadership trip to Tadoussac, riding the gondola at Chutes Montmorency, whale watching on the St. Lawrence River, and exploring the intertidal shoreline at Cap Bon Désir. Around a bonfire on the second night, this new class begins to form its own identity: the future Graduating Class of 2031.

Grade 8 students head to Oasis Surf in Brossard before spending a second day solving hands-on engineering challenges at the Montreal Science Centre and biking the Lachine Canal, a mix of physical challenge, creativity and French-language immersion outside the classroom.

Grade 9 students spend their day at Parc National du Mont-Orford on a guided hike, followed by a morning of fishing on Lake Stukely, paddling out by canoe, kayak and paddleboat to cast a line. Only two students in the group had fished before, but with rods and tackle supplied by teacher Mr. Folkerson and a catch-and-release approach throughout, students helped each other learn the technique on the water, and kept coming back to try their luck off the dock during lunch. Some are already talking about starting a fishing club.

“I was proud of how they worked together. They helped each other with technique, and the students with more experience guided the ones trying it for the first time.”

— Mr. Folkerson, High School Physical Education Teacher

Grade 10 students zip-line through the trees at Arbraska in Rawdon, then apply what they’re learning in science and marine biology to real water sampling at Île Saint-Bernard, connecting curiosity in the field to coursework that continues all year.

“As a new student, the water testing trip was nice, not just for bonding, but also for being out in nature together.”

— Elyssa C., new Grade 10 student

Grade 11 students travel to the Stratford Festival to see two plays and visit a local farm, using the trip to think about sustainability alongside their study of literature and performance, and to build the kind of shared memory that carries a graduating class forward.

What Stays With Them

These trips ask something of every student: to try something new, to rely on classmates, to be a little uncertain together. Research on outdoor education points to exactly this kind of experience as a driver of social connectedness, leadership confidence, and communication skills that carry back into the classroom for the rest of the year.

By the time students settle into their first full week of classes, they’ve already learned something about each other, and about themselves. A quiet classmate becomes the one who kept everyone laughing on the bus. A teacher becomes someone students hiked beside.

That is the point. Belonging isn’t built in a single day, but it starts somewhere. At St. George’s, it starts here, together.