Each year the students graduating from the Developmental Learning Secondary program at Georgian Bay Community School (GBCS) are asked to choose a theme for the program’s graduation celebrations. This year, graduate Torben Edgington chose Disney’s Beauty and the Beast as a theme.
Teacher Paula Almond took Torben’s ideas one step further and created a mural of the Beast’s castle outside the Developmental Learning classroom. The castle is based on one of the two full-sized castles at Tokyo Disneyland. The classroom door is the castle door welcoming guests. Torben is portrayed dressed in a Harry Potter cloak and looking out from a castle window. The colour scheme mirrors the Tokyo Disneyland castle.
There are eight students in the Developmental Learning Secondary program. During the third COVID lock-down, the five students who were not able to complete their studies online have been attending classes in the school. Three other students have been joining the class virtually for one and half hours in the morning and again in the afternoon. In that way, all students have been able to follow Paula’s progress with the mural.
“The mural is a tribute to Torben,” Paula said. “He is joyful and kind, and he brings joy to people around him. It’s a tribute also to his parents, Maren and John Edgington, in how they raised him.”
