His fiery red hair dishevelled and his forest-green school sweater slightly rumpled, five-year-old Ryan Mason darts around the newly renovated atrium lobby and main floor of the Giles School as if he owns the prestigious private institution in suburban Toronto.

Five-year-old Ryan Mason enjoys the new grounds of the Giles School, which recently moved from the basements of two churches to larger quarters.

Five-year-old Ryan Mason enjoys the new grounds of the Giles School, which recently moved from the basements of two churches to larger quarters.

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Most children Ryan's age would just now be getting their feet wet in the school system, but the energetic youngster is already in his third year of full-day learning at the co-ed French immersion school, which will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2009 on grander grounds.

This month, the 160 students — ranging from age 2 1/2 (pre-kindergarten) to Grade 12 — moved from the basements of two churches to a three-storey building in North York.

Because of the extensive renovations of the former industrial building, classes at the Giles School opened on Sept. 22.

But while it was three weeks behind the start of term at other schools, some say the institution founded by French-immersion guru Harry Giles is years ahead in its educational and socialization approaches.

On this early September day, Ryan and his mom, Venessa Kerman, were among the parents, students and school staff who were interviewed as construction workers put the finishes touches on the premises. (Despite the late start of term, child care has been available all month.)

Ryan is now in pre-K, and already has lofty goals.

"I will get to speak to the people who live in France," says the eldest son of Ms. Kerman, who works at a financial institution, and Shane Mason, who works in information security in the energy field.

The school is built on such learning pillars as early education, small class sizes and bilingual and third-language training. Students take French as early as pre-K, and Mandarin or Japanese as early as Grade 1.

And the Giles School is unusual in the private school world in that it enrolls students on a first-come, first-served basis.

Mr. Giles, legendary founder of the Toronto French School in 1962 and a pioneer of French immersion in Canada, says he never wanted it said that his school's top-grade standings were "as a consequence of creaming off the best students."

By taking children on a first-come, first-served basis, Mr. Giles says, the school has a normal mix of students, some of whom might be gifted and some of whom might have learning problems. Students "would come to the school in preschool and, by Grade 3, end up operating two or three or four years beyond the norms," he says.

"They also ended up becoming nice people. That's terribly important to me."

Ms. Kerman, also mother of 20-month-old Alexander and head of the Giles School's parent-teacher association, proudly rhymes off Ryan's achievements in a learning environment that may be a greater financial burden — tuition is in the $13,000-a-year range — but that she believes will give her son a step up in the working world.

"He just finished junior kindergarten and he's not just writing letters, but also script," says Ms. Kerman. "He can count to a couple of hundred, and on his own he has started reading. ¡K We started noticing he'd start reading labels on cereal boxes, for example, and anywhere else he finds a word — whether it's English or French, he looks at these words and reads them, breaking them down, sounding them out."

Day in and day out, headmaster Kemp Rickett hears expressions of gratitude from parents like Ms. Kerman who are thankful for the little French-immersion private school that grew.

Mr. Rickett beams with pride during a tour of the remodelled building, which has 31,000 square feet of space. He points out such features as huge windows that allow natural light to filter in, and spare areas on the top floor that will accommodate growing enrolment.

"We are kind of like goldfish," he chuckles. "We had grown to the size of our container. We needed to move to a site that unifies us and gives us an opportunity for expansion.

"We want to maintain a small community-sized family setting — the opposite of the public school system that is closing schools."

So while the Giles School aims to increase enrolment to about 250 in the coming years, Mr. Rickett stresses that it is a non-profit charity.

"We're not interested in making more money to be bigger and have a bigger building. ¡K If we find a child not being particularly challenged in the public school system who meets the kind of challenges Harry has been able to put together in the school, we very seriously look at getting a scholarship or bursary to them so they can achieve their potential."

To that end, Mr. Giles handpicks his teachers, who come from as far as France and Russia, and favours textbooks from France, Hong Kong, China, Japan and Ireland, where students are pulling in top marks in international testing.

One of the instructors is Sharon Isac, who came to Canada from Japan in 1971 and taught Japanese, as well as math and science in that language, beginning in 1990 to students as young as Grade 1.

"I was very impressed with my group of kids who walked into my classes, and they were ready to learn. They were very mature," recalls Ms. Isac, now a deputy headmaster.

The school offers a wide range of international exams. In French, students are encouraged to prepare for the Brevet, the French national examination, in Grade 10, and the baccalaureate in Grades 11 and 12.

In other subjects, students can take O- and A-level examinations, a rigorous standard set in Britain and followed in more than 130 countries; and Advanced Placement examinations, which give students advanced standing in top universities in Canada and the United States.

Mix every parent's dream — small class sizes, with 10 to 16 students per class — with a constant show of affection and positive reinforcement to the students, and you have the Giles School recipe for educating, training and socializing successful adults.

"Love, emotional nurturing, working through the medium of a foreign language, especially in mathematics — all of that is important in the development of neural pathways and the increased operational intelligence that results," says Mr. Giles, a towering figure who, at age 78, walks with a cane.

Sue Vijh and Angie Clark are among the parents who boast about the school's power to boost intelligence and confidence.

Ms. Vijh, also deputy headmaster of administration at the school, says she was intent on enrolling her daughter Anisha, now 9, and son Owen, 7, in a private school regardless of the cost.

Having attended the Toronto French School herself for 1 1/2 years, she embraced Mr. Giles's philosophy and pillars for learning.

"The whole school works on the system of promoting self-esteem," she says. "When the students start so young, it's just easy."

To which Anisha, who entered the Giles School in senior kindergarten, adds: "The people are really friendly. Really the only time I am bored is when I do reviews because I already know all that stuff. And I love Mandarin [which she began taking in Grade 1]. It's so cool."

Ms. Clark's 3 1/2-year-old daughter, Poet, is in JK and her other daughter, 1 1/2-year-old Ocean, will be a Giles student next year. Horrified that many of her friends were struggling to get their children into a good public French-immersion school because of overcrowding, Ms. Clark and her husband, Andre, a software developer, found the Giles School online and embraced the first-come, first-served concept.

The idea of providing academic transcripts and putting her children through intense interviews to get into a private school were a turnoff, says Ms. Clark, who runs a graphic design and marketing business.

"The Giles School is all about education, not prestige," she says.

"And what I love is that it doesn't just take exceptional kids and spit out exceptional kids. It doesn't discriminate."

Special to The Globe and Mail