New Chabad Inspired Day School to Open in Toronto

A new Jewish day school with a unique educational method is opening in the York Region of Ontario.

After closures of Jewish day schools in the York region in the past few years due to the Covid pandemic, Tamim Academy YR has responded and will commence in the fall for senior kindergarten and a combined Grade 1 and 2 class.

Tamim Academy is a collaboration of two accomplished directors of Pre-schools in North Toronto, Toby Bernstein of Gan Shalom – Chabad of Romano, and Goldie Plotkin, of Torah Tots – Chabad of Markham.

Not An Ordinary School

Tamim Academy has allied with the Tamim Academy Network of elementary day schools, offering an innovative “Whole Child” approach to Jewish Education.

The York Region was tapped to join the “Whole Child” network as it looks to expand upon its schools in New York, NY, Burlington, Vermont, Greenwich, Connecticut, Boca Raton, Florida, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Salt Lake City, Utah.

The Whole Child Approach

Our “Whole-Child” approach assures that significant attention is given to the many disparate planes upon which a well-rounded education is dependent. The social, emotional, physical and the spiritual are interlinked. Toby Berenstien noted, “The philosophy of the school is to provide for the whole child, to help the child grow on every level: spiritually, physically, emotionally and academically. But it all has to work in sync. The child has to feel emotionally healthy to open up to learn. A child must have any learning issues resolved so that he can grow.”

The “Whole Child” philosophy ventures beyond the traditional paradigm of separating our real lives from our Jewish live, or the physical/emotional from the academics. Our interdisciplinary units are melded with the general and Judaic studies, connecting students to the real-world application of their “Whole Child” knowledge towards individually meaningful lives.

Goldie Plotkin elaborates, “Preparing students for life requires more than just transferring a baseline set of facts and information. Tamim Academy will ensure that each student has active goals that are related to their respective skills and dispositions. This will be the focus of our curriculum and how we assess each child.”

Immersive Hebrew Language

The early acquisition of Hebrew as a second language is essential for Jewish textual literacy and for Jewish identity. In addition to formal language instruction, we will incorporate Hebrew throughout the non-academic parts of the day for real-life applications and interactions.

As our principal Sarah Loewnthal breaks it down:

“Tamim’s pedagogical structure will teach students to monitor their own goal setting, including conflict resolution. The students will negotiate and work in groups and have various partner activities.

This will help to develop self-discipline and self motivation through independent work.

Tamim will nurture a community of kindness. We will have morning check-ins: asking, ‘how are you?’ and have a trusted social-emotional curriculum, which builds their social-emotional vocabularies.”

Future Forward

Tamim Academy helps prepare our students to gain admittance to the high school of their choice.

Chabad of Romano and Chabad of Markham care deeply about every Jewish child in the community. We are delighted to become a part of the Tamim Academy Network and look forward to opening the Tamim Academy of York Region

Join us and give your children the deep knowledge, experience, and opportunity to express their whole selves, materially and spiritually.

Registration is now open at TamimYR.org.

For any questions and inquiries feel free to reach out to Toby Bernstein @ [email protected] and Goldie @ [email protected]