FDT celebrates a fantastic year at our 2nd Annual gala

FDT News, Student of the month

In June, FDT held its 2nd ever annual gala at the Pinnacle Hotel. Attendees enjoyed a night of games, celebrations, and even a musical performance from our own Founder and CEO Frankie Cena. Most importantly we were able to look back at the year and recognize the excellence of our students and staff. Here are highlights from the evening!

For the first time ever FDT gave out awards to instructors. The award for New Instructor of the Year went to Panthea Pourmalek. And the award for Instructor of the Year went to Anna Saint, with runner up Jacqueline Belzberg.

FDT then recognized the outstanding students who had qualified to national events. For qualifying to Junior Speech Nationals we recognized Katherine Feng, Eric Li, Nora Zhu, Jena Yue, Natalie Viegas, and Hailey Chen. For qualifying to Junior Debate Nationals we recognized Eric Li, Jonathan Chu, Jessie Liu, Alex Logan, Natalie Viegas, and Sean Oh. We recognized Angelina Zhang, Nicholas Viegas, Joyce Chen, and Anthony Chu for qualifying to Senior Speech Nationals and Bianca Dammholz, Maggie MacInnis, Kiran Basra, Angelina Zhang, and Emily Ni for qualifying to BP Nationals. For qualifying to Senior Debate Nationals we recognized Bianca Dammholz, Saara Meghji, Leo Wang, Judy Rhee, Allan Lee, and Jamin Feng while recognizing Emily Ni, Nikki Wu, Vivian Gu, Angelina Zhang, and Kiran Basra for competing at French Debate Nationals. Finally, we recognized Jason Guo and Jamin Feng for qualifying to try out for the Canadian National Debating Team at National Qualifiers and Angelina Zhang and Nicholas Viegas who represented Canada at the Worlds Individual Public Speaking and Debate Championships.

For the first time FDT awarded special honours for students who pushed the bar of excellence for a variety of reasons. First we named the students who made an impact with FDT despite being new to our academy. Our Best New Novice Student was Amy Ren. Our Best New Junior Student was Edward Gao. Finally our Best New Senior Student was Emily Ni.

Next we named our students who have through hard work, showed remarkable improvement throughout the year. Our Most Improved Novice Student was Ivy Ye. Our Most Improved Junior Student was Emily Qiu. And our Most Improved Senior Student was Grace Lee.

After we announced students who have set a bright example for others with their leadership, work ethic, and story. Our Most Inspiration Novice Students were Cynthia and Athena Yu. Our Most Inspirational Junior Student was Alice Xu. And our Most Inspirational Senior Student was Angela Lu!

Finally we were pleased to announce which students had won FDT’s highest honour: Student of the Year. Our Novice Student of the Year for 2018/2019 is Matthew Yu. Our Junior Student of the Year is Eric Li. And finally, our Senior Student of the Year is Jason Guo!

This year has been FDT\’s best so far and we look forward to a bright future in 2019/2020!