old boy profiles
’54
Barry Wansbrough
A life after Headmastering
M
ichael Barrett (Barry) Wansbrough had a distinguished St. Andrew’s career from 1950 to 1954, graduating as Head Prefect four years after his brother Christopher graduated in the same role. After a several-year pause to sort out the future, he graduated from Bishop’s University and the Ontario College of Education, and spent six years teaching, coaching and housemastering at Upper Canada College. His great thrill there as senior football coach was to face his old coach, Aub Holmes, and the SAC team. Both teams were coached by Andreans, so despite the nail-biting 6-0 score, SAC still won! Barry went on to become the youngest Headmaster in the country at Hillfield Strathallan College in Hamilton in 1969. “I went into my father’s trade,” he says. His father, Victor, was Headmaster at Lower Canada College and a regular guest speaker at SAC’s Sunday evening chapel service. His mother, Ruth, was a long-time Honorary President of the SAC Ladies Guild. During his 26 years at Hillfield Strathallan, Barry inherited and eliminated a mountain of debt that actually equalled the school’s income. He also doubled the enrolment from 500 to 1,000 students. After he retired in 1995, HSC went on to construct and name a building on campus after him in honour of his distinguished career. But when you talk to Barry today, the focus is all on his current labour of love, the not-for-profit Licensed to Learn program (L2L) he has built into a major community initiative since his retirement. L2L trains and certifies student tutors to provide academic help to peers who are at risk or underachieving in their studies. “The program had its genesis at Hillfield, where we partnered with an adolescent psychologist to determine how to help students with learning difficulties,”
t h e
Barry Wansbrough (right) at the Hillfield building dedication along with (L-R) sister Margaret Paterson, daughter Gwyn, grandchildren Diego and Daniela Dussan-Wansbrough, Betty and brother Chris Wansbrough, son Mike, and wife Michaele Robertson.
he says. “I then became keen on looking at how students learn rather than what they learn, saw the dramatic results, and I began to pursue peer tutoring after I retired.” The tutor training and certification program now is in partnership with the Toronto District School Board. It operates in over 30 Toronto public schools with close to 500 tutors in training. The tutors in the program have offered more than 15,000 free tutoring sessions since it began in 2002. Roy McMurtry ’50 and Chris Wansbrough ’50, (who will be awarded an honorary doctor’s degree by the U of T in June), Coulter Osborne ’52, and classmates: Doug Grant ’54, John Cathers ’54 and Johnny Vaughan ’54 have been valued supporters of the L2L program. Barry lives with his wife Michaele Robertson, Principal of the University of Toronto Schools in Toronto. He has a son, Michael ’84, and two daughters, Connie and Gwyn.
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