There are many important milestones we mark over the course of our lives. Either through reflecting on your own (such as getting your driver’s licence, graduation day, first job, first home, etc.) or those marked by your child (their first word, the first day of school, first friend, etc.), we often highlight key moments such as these to capture and memorialize our lives and experiences. Each milestone we have experienced has helped to provide us with unique perspectives and has even directly or indirectly guided us on our current path in life. I remember vividly the day I was offered the job here at TCS in 2000 as the Junior School physical education and French teacher (yes, a lot has changed!), and I have never looked back. TCS has become my second home and such a key part of my life that I can’t imagine what might have been should my first foray into teaching have occurred elsewhere.
While my roles here in the Junior School over the past 23 years have changed and evolved, one constant has remained the same – Boulden House. I have entered through the same door, walked down the same halls and been surrounded by – for a large part of my time here – the same remarkable colleagues. And while the classrooms have been repainted, remodelled and reworked to reflect 21st-century learning spaces in which students can flourish, the bricks and mortar of this building have remained the same.
The Junior School building, known as Boulden House, is set to mark an important milestone. In 2024, it will be celebrating its 100th anniversary. And while those of us currently in the building have a multitude of stories to share, imagine the stories of those who walked the halls, taught in the classrooms and lived in the building as boarders before us, including the very first group of Junior School boys who entered the memorial building for the first time on Monday, September 15, 1924.
TCS will be embarking on a year-long celebration to commemorate Boulden House. From December 2023 to December 2024, we will be highlighting the stories and history of those who have stepped foot in the building, students, faculty and parents, past and present. We will do this through a variety of communications, activities and events. Our students have already undertaken an initiative to consider Boulden House and what it represents to them, and the results of their work will be featured in our school's alumni magazine, The TCS News, due out later this month.
Winston Churchill famously stated, in a speech requesting that the House of Commons in London be rebuilt exactly as it was after it was bombed in 1941, “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” Anyone with a connection to Boulden House most likely has a story of how they have been “shaped” by the building. This upcoming year, we will endeavour to celebrate this connection together. Please stay tuned!
