Dear Students and Parents,
Looking forward to seeing everyone at the Welcome Back Picnic tomorrow!
High School Back to School Night on Thursday
Please join us for our annual High School Back to School Night on Thursday, August 25th. Come and experienced an abridged version of a “day in the life” of your student(s). Teachers will share an overview of their courses and will answer general questions you may have. You can pick up your student’s schedule between 4:45 - 5:00 pm which will be followed by a brief welcome in the Black Box Theater. Classes will start promptly at 5:30 pm and end at 7:25 pm.
First Early Release Wednesday Coming
On August 24, we will have our first Early Release Wednesday. Students are expected to depart campus in a timely and organized fashion. We appreciate your patience with traffic on these days. In preparation, please plan on allowing longer time for entry and exit to the school at release time. For Elementary School students, the lunch routine will not change. For our Middle and High School students, lunch will be a quick "grab and go" sandwich on this day. If your secondary student wants a hot lunch, please remember to pack one from home.
Department Spotlight - English - from HOD Pepper McFarland
This is an exciting year in the high school English department, as we continue to perfect the classes previously provided and begin offering a wider variety of new programs.
With the phase out of traditional 11th and 12th grade English classes, we have created new electives based around the expertise of our staff and the interests of the students. In addition to the Expository Writing and Public Speaking classes introduced last year, we now offer Dystopian Literature, Introduction to Film and Drama, and Introduction to Poetry. Each of these courses are a semester in length, giving students more opportunities to explore different interests and expand on specific skills in writing, speaking, and literary analysis.
In our specialised IB and AP programs, we were able to add IB Language and Literature to our advanced offerings. Critical Reading and Writing 1 and 2 (grades 9 and 10) prepare students for all of our upperclassmen offerings - semester electives, AP or IB!
Common Syllabi Format - Repeat Announcement
This year the High School has begun using a common template for all course syllabi. Teachers will present their syllabi at Back to School Night and have already posted them on Moodle. After Back to School Night a master list of all syllabi will be published in the notes for your reference. If you are interested in viewing the syllabi before then, please log into Moodle as a guest and visit the page of each of your son/daughter’s courses.
Upcoming Parent Coffee Agenda - Repeat Announcement
Our first high school coffee of the year will take place on Tuesday, August 30th, at 8:45 am in the Hall of Light (3rd floor). Ron Thomson will welcome the group and share information about our athletics and activities program. Afterwards, Mike Malone and I will share the research and philosophy that guided the high school to write and implement the updated Assessment Philosophy and Guidelines (p. 50 of the student handbook). We will leave plenty of time for parents to ask questions in order to deepen understanding.
Please note a few of the noteworthy changes/additions to our assessment guidelines that will be explained during the coffee:
- Formative assessments (eg: homework, classwork, etc.) will be recorded in Skyward for communication purposes but will not count in the overall semester achievement mark.
- A minimum of 4 - 6 summative assessments will be given per semester in each course. These, along with the final exam/assessment will determine the overall semester achievement mark for the semester.
- Students who submit summative assessments late will enter a communication/remediation process that will involve communication home to parents and, potentially, a mandatory make up session to complete the work on a Friday afternoon or Saturday morning. The dates for these sessions are fixed and students assigned to them are expected to attend.
A debrief of the coffee will be shared after the presentation along with supporting schedules and graphics. With that said, we strongly encourage parents to attend so they have all of their questions/concerns answered.
Sincerely,
Joelle Basnight
High School Principal