PRINCIPAL’S MESSAGE

Happy Weekend to everyone!  It’s a lengthy Principal’s Report this week as there is a lot  going on at school that our school community needs to be aware of.

First of all I want to acknowledge and thank our community policing partners for visiting Maple Grove and assessing the traffic patterns and behaviours with me. We had a productive session and shared our concerns for the intersection of 47th and Cypress Street. We also acknowledged the dangerous driving of a number of vehicles and have agreed that frequent reminders in the school blog may help to bring awareness to the situation. Our policing partners did hand out tickets.

I want to also acknowledge all of the wonderful parent support that I witness on a daily basis in and around the school. It’s so nice to see parent volunteers working to ensure their children’s education is engaging, robust, and productive.  We truly rely on the selfless dedication of parents and their unique and strong skill sets that only add to the variety of experiences that we can possibly provide for students.   Thank you to all of the parents who dedicate their time and energy and efforts to the Maple Grove School community and making sure that all of our children have the best education possible.

To this end, I want to acknowledge all of the parents who worked tirelessly to ensure that the Halloween fundraising dance was a huge success.

Ms. Smith and I attended the event and thoroughly enjoyed all of the decorations, costumes, and organization that went into making sure the evening went swimmingly.

Hats off to all of the parents who worked on the event or who volunteered their time in preparing for the event.  These types of activities that bring our school community together only help to strengthen the culture of the school.  I think we need to recognize our amazing PAC executive and all of the leadership they provide in building a strong parent community.

I would also like to acknowledge the wonderful Montessori education evening held earlier in the week.  Ms. Hart, was our guest presenter and gave a thorough and comprehensive overview of Montessori education and how it relates to Maple Grove School.  I want to acknowledge Ms. Paula Temrick for all of her time, energy and effort in organizing the event. I also want to acknowledge our PAC executive for sponsoring the event and supporting this worthy endeavour.

Reporting is changing at Maple Grove:

Throughout British Columbia, all school districts are working on revising and changing the way they assess, report and communicate student learning.  Vancouver is no different.  Maple Grove is currently part of a pilot project with 63 other schools in Vancouver in which we are looking at a revised process of communicating student learning as it relates to the new curriculum.  The district is planning on changing and implementing its reporting process as of September, 2018, and Maple Grove wants to position itself so that we are in a good place to be up to speed with how our province and district want reporting to take place.

As mentioned in the PAC meeting previously,  I want to share with parents some of the similarities and differences between our old reporting process and our pilot process for communicating student learning.  Essentially, you will notice two significant differences:

1. Our conventional reporting process involved three formal report cards and two informal reports .  This will switch to two formal reports and three informal ways of connecting over student learning .
2. The other significant difference you will notice is that in conventional report cards we gave out letter grades and work habit classifications.  As part of the pilot, the new communicating student learning report will not have letter grades (these are available upon request from the parent). The new reports will continue with a classification for student work habits and achievement.

It is important to recognize that with a new/ re-designed provincial curriculum that is focused on 21st-century teaching and learning, we truly needed to update and upgrade our conventional reporting process and format.  We have been informed that our district will be mandating a new format in September, 2018, so many of our staff see advantages for working through the pilot this year to become familiar and acquainted with the new communicating student learning formats.

Here is a sample of what a new report might look like: