School is well under way and teachers and students have settled into a comfortable routine. Hopefully you have had a chance to meet your child’s teachers last week at the 3 way conferences. These are sometimes referred to as our Student Led Conferences as it is an expectation that the students lead the discussion in regards to their learning during the interviews. We had some unexpected assemblies in October. First we had a professional race car driver talk to the kids about safe driving. The idea was that students would get a chance to drive a car with “beer goggles” in the Hockey Arena’s parking lot but that fell through. It would have been a great experience. We were also fortunate to have Karina LeBlanc talk to the whole school about her experiences at the Olympics and as a professional athlete. Her message is a good one; Dream big and never give up! She was swamped at the end of the assembly for her autograph and all the kids wanted to see the Bronze Medal.
We are a bit late getting our Student Advisory up and running this year. But we have an excellent group of students and we have a really solid agenda this year. We will have some students work on setting up a sustainable structure to fight bullying and to find ways for our students to report concerns and get support. Our counsellors will work with the advisory students to review the whole system we currently have in place. Other students on the advisory will work on improving student culture. The main theme there is that we seem overloaded on athletics and there does not seem to be many opportunities to get involved if you are not on a team. I know Ms. Fruean has just started a Gay/Straight Alliance Group at the request of students so some students are already working on ideas.
Our staff continues to work on instructional strategies, particularly on Guided Inquiry. Many of our teachers attended a district workshop on engaging adolescents as well. Several teachers also attended a regional ministry workshop to review graduation requirements and assessment strategies. As you know the Ministry of Education’s “Plan” (http://www.bcedplan.ca/) is scheduled to begin in 2014. The next event for us is our Remembrance Day Assemblies. I am looking forward to it.
Finally, staff is just at the beginning stages of reviewing our timetable. I don’t believe that we will go to a semester system but the length of blocks and the number of blocks per day may change. The start and end times will remain the same. It does provide us with an opportunity to align new ideas and strategies with the ministry’s “Plan”. Not much more to say on timetabling as we are early in the process. Parents and students will have a say as we work through the process.
Thanks for reading!
Mr. Dickson
The Principal's Corner 