Story
Twelve-year-old Chloe has spent over a year in Toronto while receiving medical care. Along the way, an unusual school inside Ronald McDonald House Toronto has become part of her life.
Ask Chloe what surprised her about Toronto and she has a few observations ready.
Rush hour, for one. “Rush hour is every hour,” the 12-year-old says. “It’s always busy. It’s crazy.”
Then there are the hospitals. Walk down University Avenue from Ronald McDonald House Toronto and she can name them: Toronto General, Mount Sinai, Princess Margaret, SickKids. “There’s so many hospitals,” she says.
And wildlife is harder to come by downtown than it is at home. When she does spot an animal here, she says, “it’s really magical.”
Home for Chloe is the Northwest Territories. For over a year, however, Toronto has been home too. She and her family have been staying at Ronald McDonald House Toronto while she receives medical care, and during that time another place has become part of her routine: Ronald McDonald House Toronto School.
This September, Chloe will start Grade 7.
She is looking forward to it.
“I’m looking forward to seeing my teacher again,” she says. “It’s a really fun school, so I’m excited to be going back.”
A school built around its students
Ronald McDonald House Toronto School occupies an unusual place in the education system. Located inside the House, it is a private school recognized by Ontario’s Ministry of Education and serves patients and siblings staying there, from Junior Kindergarten through Grade 12. Students arrive from communities across Canada and beyond, often in the middle of a school year and with no certainty about how long they will remain in Toronto.
That means the school has to operate differently.
Treatment schedules and medical appointments do not organize themselves around math class. Some children can manage a full school day; others need more individualized learning. The school offers full-day classes as well as one-on-one EASEL — Engaging Academic, Social and Emotional Learning — sessions, and its rolling admissions mean students can enter throughout the year. Newly registered students typically begin on Mondays.
For Chloe, one of the differences is size. Her classroom brings together students of different ages and grades, and the number of children at her own grade level can be small.
She likes that.
Math is not her favourite subject — she makes that quite clear — but she likes the way her teacher Ciana can break it down for her.
“It’s a very one-on-one school,” Chloe says. “And, Ciana always makes math fun.”
Writing and science are another matter. She loves both. Science means experiments and testing things. In English, students write poems, including ones for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day that are special memories for her. Visiting organizations bring special programming into the classroom; there has been theatre, science and baking with Chef Michael, the in-house chef.
And then there are the field trips.
Finding home in miniature
One of Chloe’s favourite field trips was the school’s visit to Little Canada, the Toronto attraction that recreates places across the country in miniature.
There, thousands of kilometres from home, Chloe found the Northwest Territories.
She recognized the big drum from her community. And she found something else familiar: a miniature version of the ice castle built each winter in Yellowknife, on the frozen lake.
“It was really cool,” she says.
It’s an almost incidental detail when Chloe tells the story. To her, this is simply one of the things she liked about a school trip.
But it also captures something about what education can mean for children whose lives have been unexpectedly transplanted by illness. School is certainly about maintaining academic progress. But it is also about having somewhere to go in the morning. Teachers who know you. Experiments to conduct. Places to visit. People your own age to talk to.
Friends.
Asked what having the school has meant during her time in Toronto, Chloe pauses before landing on that word.
“It makes me feel a little bit more social,” she says. “And it makes me feel good that I have friends.”
That social and emotional dimension is intentional: Ronald McDonald House Toronto School’s model is student-centred. It is designed to support academic, emotional and social success while accommodating complicated treatment and appointment schedules.
Looking forward
There is plenty about Chloe’s life in Toronto that is not ordinary. Medical care brought her here. SickKids is only a five-minute walk from the House. Her family has been away from home for over a year.
But listen to Chloe talk about the year ahead and much of what she says sounds wonderfully familiar.
She’s going into Grade 7.
She wants to see her teachers again. She’s looking forward to field trips. She likes writing and science. She still doesn’t particularly like math.
And she has friends waiting for her at school.
At Ronald McDonald House Toronto School, the first day of school doesn’t only happen in September. New students arrive throughout the year, as families come to Toronto for their child’s medical care.
That means a new first day can happen almost any week of the year. And the School needs to be ready when it does.
Every Monday is Back to School
Read the 2025–2026 Ronald McDonald House Toronto School Impact Report to learn more about the students, educators, programs and outcomes behind this remarkable school.