Our Trips

If there is one thing that students learn in TOPS, it’s that in order to be a successful individual, one must first be successful with others. From the first trip in grade 9 to the last in grade 12, TOPS students form strong and lasting bonds. Throughout the years, they all develop a great deal of respect for each other, becoming one large family. On these foundations are based the growth that has led to repeated national level successes by our students. Our National Science Fair champions, our scholarship winners, our competition medalists in both the maths and the sciences; all of our school leaders could not have achieved what they have were it not for the guidance and support of their peers. If the mentality of TOPS could be expressed by one saying, it would best be defined by Newton’s famous words: “If I have seen further than other men, it is because I stood on the shoulders of giants.” These trips allow all of our TOPS students to identify the giant within them and to value the giants in the room and their mutual interdependence. It has been said that TOPS students teach each other as much as they might learn in formal lessons. The TOPS program is organized to value this peer interaction and our various trips foster it.