750 Spadina Avenue, Toronto, ON M5S
- SCHOOL TYPE: Private
- WEBSITE: Paul Penna Downtown Jewish Day School
- SCHOOL LEVEL: Elementary, Kindergarten, and Middle
- GRADES OFFERED: K - 8
Paul Penna Downtown Jewish Day School offers an integrated approach to learning in a vibrant Jewish environment, where critical thinking and creative expression are nurtured. Our vision of educational excellence encompasses a solid foundation in core academic skills, social justice, and the arts. Our teachers cultivate curiosity and a love of learning in a dynamic and supportive environment. We bring together children from a wide range of Jewish observance and backgrounds and from diverse family compositions, in mutual respect, to promote understanding and love of Jewish tradition, values, and culture. Our religious practice is egalitarian and grounded in both traditional and modern sources of inspiration. Students are encouraged to question and explore, in order to develop their own authentic relationship to Judaism and the Jewish people. We enable our students to become active, independent learners who will grow to be responsible citizens and compassionate, confident members of the community.
The University of Toronto is a public research university, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. With its green spaces and many interlocking courtyards, the university forms a distinct region of urban parkland in the city's downtown core. Harbord Village is part of the University neighbourhood and lies just to the west of the University of Toronto proper. Harbord Village is largely a professional community and home to many professors from the University of Toronto. The neighbourhood's Victorian housing stock has mostly been renovated and returned to single-family occupancy.