Fleetwood Park Secondary teacher wins Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence

November 6, 2025

Fleetwood Park Secondary teacher Derek Fournier is among this year's recipients of the Prime Minister's Award for Teaching Excellence. The humanities and social studies teacher is being recognized for his commitment to exemplary teaching practices, mentorship of colleagues, support of mental health and encouragement of students to be global citizens. (Photos by Jacob Zinn)

When Derek Fournier began his 32-year career with Surrey Schools, he never set out to win an award.

But the Fleetwood Park Secondary teacher is one of only 11 from across the country being recognized with the Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence – one of the highest honours for Canadian educators.

The national award celebrates teaching staff who have shown innovative thinking in their educational practices, motivating both students and colleagues to pursue excellence. Fournier was recognized for his commitment to exemplary teaching practices and student success, building his reputation as an attentive humanities and social studies teacher who connects with students, mentors colleagues, and promotes mental health and wellbeing while cultivating a sense of community among the school’s 1,800 pupils.

“Derek is the kind of teacher any principal would be fortunate to have on their team,” wrote Fleetwood Park principal Jodie Perry in her nomination of Fournier. “He leads with his heart, understands school culture and recognizes the importance of his role. His dedication to his students’ academic and emotional growth is truly commendable, and his contributions to the school community are invaluable.”

Fournier’s passion for education is truly lifelong: it started on his first day of kindergarten and extended all the way through high school, prompting him to follow in the footsteps of his teachers.

Derek Fournier has spent his entire 32-year career as an educator in Surrey, teaching an estimated 7,000 students across Guildford Park Secondary, Fleetwood Park Secondary and Lord Tweedsmuir Secondary. (Photos by Jacob Zinn)

“I’ve loved school since the day I started,” said Fournier. “Every little thing that happened at school seemed to keep me happy.

“In my teenage years, I had some unbelievably gifted Grade 9 and 10 teachers in Richmond that made me say, ‘I would love to be like that.’ The influence they had on me, I wanted to be able to do that for someone else one day.”

Coming from a sports background, Fournier studied kinesiology as part of his Bachelor of Education at UBC, with the intent of teaching P.E. and coaching school teams. But he also minored in history and English, with those subjects later causing him to fall in love with classroom teaching.

“They weren’t subjects I did in high school that much, so learning about them in a serious way in university really got my attention and got me curious,” he said. “I always felt it was an accomplishment to take a subject matter that kids don’t normally gravitate to and be able to get them excited to learn about it. If I could check that box, I was making progress.”

In his current classes, Fournier’s forward-thinking approach teaches students global citizenship, community involvement, racial equity, positive leadership, and digital and creative literacy – crucial life skills for today’s graduates.

But back in the fall of 1993, he was just starting his teaching career, having finished his practicum at Guildford Park Secondary and returning to the school for his first official school year. It was there he picked up on the importance of truly engaging students, and with some professional guidance from his late friend and fellow teacher Mark Avery, he discovered he could use techniques from P.E. in the gym to excite students in the classroom.

“Mark was a P.E. and humanities teacher, and he would bring these competitions to his class, whether it was trivia or games of any kind that relate to the curriculum,” said Fournier. “It was early gamification of the classroom. He was an early pioneer and he hooked the kids, they rushed to his class every day.

“I realized taking a sports mindset and bringing it into classrooms with little games created some cooperation through competition, and that came from my original years in P.E.”

Fournier has left his mark at every school in which he’s set foot. A year into his career, Fleetwood Park Secondary opened, and as many of his Guildford Park teaching mentors switched to the new school, he found himself in the leadership roles they left behind, setting roots for himself as a mentor.

He stayed at Guildford Park for eight years before joining Fleetwood Park in the early 2000s, when the school was building a humanities program for Grade 8 students with a focus on the social and emotional transition to high school – something he had always leaned into. Almost instantly, his presence began to shape the school as it is today: he had a founding role in establishing its Grade 8 overnight retreat, now a 23-year tradition that serves as a bond-building introduction to the school.

As his own children reached school age, Fournier moved to Lord Tweedsmuir Secondary to be closer to home, spending 15 years there teaching humanities while also becoming the social studies department leader. He credits teaching all over Surrey and his considerable tenure at each school, as well as becoming a father, with molding his teaching style and approach to the classroom.

“Getting a sense of the communities in Surrey has really helped me tailor what I do,” he said. “I’ve come to understand where parents’ hopes and dreams are for their kids – once I understood what it felt like to be a parent, I started to realize each of these kids in my classroom is somebody’s joy, somebody’s pure love, and I thought, ‘Okay, that’s what it’s about.’”

When his own kids graduated from secondary school, Fournier felt it was again time for a change, but still with the familiarity of the district in which he’s spent his entire career. He returned to Fleetwood Park, and despite being away for a decade and a half, his early influence on the school is still sewn into its social fabric.

“There are so many people who still teach here, who were there when I first started and when I came back, and that really showed the strength of the culture we had built in the early 2000s,” he said. “The culture of what we believe in with students and building community did not change, in fact it got stronger.”

Fournier remains connected to his students and other staff as a mentor, a leadership role that he takes seriously after inheriting it from others who took him under their wing.

And while he doesn’t teach for the accolades, he said he is grateful to be recognized, whether it’s by an unexpected award, the thanks from his colleagues, or the heartwarming feedback from the estimated 7,000 students he’s taught over more than three decades and their families.

“There was a student I taught who was incredibly gifted, talented, athletic,” he recalled. “She got into university and she asked me to write her a reference for law school, and she got in.

“She came from a family with little money but her mom knit me this amazing toque and just cried when she gave it to me and hugged me. I still have it, I still wear it, and every time I pick it up, I remember that little relationship.

“Every teacher in this building’s going to have a story like that, and that’s what keeps you going.”

Fournier joins a growing list of Surrey teachers to receive the Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence, including:

Congratulations, Derek! And thank you for all that you do for your students!