Partnerships
TQS works with businesses, colleges, and community organizations to create real supported opportunities for students, opportunities that build confidence and connect learning to life beyond school.
Why Partnerships Matter
Our upper school students take part in an internship program, spending time at local businesses learning about and performing real jobs. That partnership continues into Real World Ready, which is built around helping students gain skills and confidence for a more independent future. It gives students a chance to practise communication and independence, and to connect classroom learning with the wider world, in ways that are supported and appropriate to each student.
How Partnerships Support Students
The value of a partnership isn’t just the activity itself. It’s what a student practises, understands, and begins to believe about their own future: trying a new environment, communicating in a real setting, and seeing themselves as a capable contributor beyond the classroom.
What Partnership Looks Like
Every partnership starts with a conversation about your organization and idea. From there, we think through how it could support student learning or confidence, review timing, supervision, and safety, and shape the details together so it works for your organization and our students.
Who We Partner With
We currently partner with a range of local businesses, colleges, and community organizations, including:
- Weavers Way
- Beds for Kids
- Barnes & Noble
- Worthwhile Thrift
- Manor College
Partnership Opportunities
Workplace and Career Exposure
Site visits, job shadowing, and hands-on business literacy experience for our high school and post-graduate students.
College and University Pathways
We partner with colleges and universities on internship pathways, career day events, campus tours for college-bound students, and job posting platforms like Handshake.
Professional Placement and Intern Partnerships
We work with graduate and undergraduate programs in fields such as social work, physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech pathology, teaching, and 1:1 student support, offering supervised placement experience at TQS.
Community Experience Partnerships
Local organizations, from historical societies to libraries to community services, help students practise participation and connection in real community settings.
What This Can Look Like
A local business hosts a supported workplace visit, where students see different roles and begin connecting classroom learning to real workplaces, similar to how our students currently intern at places like Weavers Way Co-op.
A university program places a supervised intern at TQS in speech pathology, occupational therapy, social work, or teaching, gaining hands-on experience while supporting our students.
A community organization, like a local library or historical society, hosts students for a real-world learning experience that builds communication and independence.
Begin a Conversation
If your organization is interested in working with TQS, we'd be glad to hear from you. You don't need a fully formed proposal, share your idea and we can explore whether there's a good fit together.
