MS Week Ahead: Sept. 5

It was another great (and busy) week for the MS.  Routines and procedures, that you have all so carefully been cultivating and practicing, are now beginning to pay off, and students are getting into the new rhythms of the year (and so are we).  Hope this long weekend is relaxing and just what you need to recoup from a very busy start to the year.

Here is what’s up this week:

Monday, Sept. 5
Day 1, ABCD (Adv)
*Happy Birthday Mark Crowell!
8:15  Fire Drill (unannounced to students)
1:30-3 Sr. Admin Team Mtg

Tuesday, Sept. 6
Day 2, EFGH (DEAR)
*Lead MAP Proctors – have all testing sessions set up by today

Wednesday, Sept. 7
Day 3, BCDA (Early Dismissal Schedule – see below)

Thursday, Sept. 8
Day 4, FGHE (MAP Schedule: Language Usage test)
Happy Birthday Sang Lam!
8:15-9:15 MS Principal’s Coffee – Tech Training for Parents

Friday, Sept. 9
Day 5, CDAB (DEAR)
*Happy Birthday Dawne Kaba!
7:30-8 Breakfast Club – Sponsored by Grade 7

Saturday, September 10
CFG Institute Begins

Upcoming (on the radar)
September 8, 13, 16, – MS MAP Testing
September 17 – PTA Family Day, 9-12
September 23 – MS Dance, 5-8pm
September 30 – HOS / MS Faculty Reception, 4-5:30pm
October 5 – End of Quarter 1

Morning Announcements in 1st Block:  Just a reminder that announcements should be reviewed during 1st block each day.  Since we don’t have a public broadcast system, this is one of the only ways we have to ensure students get information about upcoming events.  You can locate these on Moodle, on the Link, or by using this direct link.  Thanks for making sure to take 3-5 minutes to review the announcements each morning.

Review of HW Prior to Students Leaving Class:  I’ve heard from many teachers that students are struggling to develop strong routines to help them stay organized and on top of their homework.  Please remember to review all HW with students prior to their leaving class.  We also recommend you have students write this information in their planner / planning system (for Gr 6, they are to use their paper planner; Gr 7 and 8 students may be using other methods).  Here is a quick reminder of the relevant section in our MS Faculty Handbook:  Homework must be assigned and explained prior to students leaving from class.  On no occasion should homework be assigned via Moodle or email on a day when students are not in class with that teacher.

MS MAP Testing:  MAP testing starts this week.  Be sure to have a good understanding of the testing plan / schedule.

Early Dismissal:  We have an early dismissal this week.  We will be working on WASC Chapter 4 during from 1-4:30.  Here is the timetable for the day:

Keeping PS Up to Date and Grade Reporting Guidelines:  Keeping parents and students informed about academic progress is one of our goals as a MS division.  As we work to implement the Grade Reporting Guidelines, we are hitting the mid-quarter time frame of 4 weeks into the quarter.  That would mean each class would have at least 2 marks in PS.  In looking at PS reports, we can see that parents and students are using PS frequently to gain information.  Between the app and the web version, at a minimum 98% of student records have been accessed either by them or by their parents.  PS is a great resource we have to communicate with parents and students. If you want to see the full report of PS access stats, see the bottom of this blog post.

Q1 Grades/Comments: Just to get this on your radar – Quarter 1 ends Oct. 5.  Grades and Comment due dates fall after the quarter this time because of the timing of Parent Teacher Conferences.  Please see the MS Faculty Handbook for information regarding our agreements on comment writing (Report Card Comments is the topic).  Here are the dates/deadlines:

     October 13, 2016: Quarter 1 Report Completed

• October 12 – comments completed and peer reviewed (in Q1 bin) and grades completed by 3:00; verification reports printed at 3:00
• October 13 – verification report reviewed, signed (can be completed digitally in PS) and returned to office by 12:15
• October 13 and 14 – Parent Teacher Conferences;  Oct. 13 from 4-8pm and Oct. 14 from 8-1)

Using Sentence Stems:   Thank you to everyone who met during their lunch periods about accommodations for students!  Now that we have had a chance to touch base about our students’ needs, you may still have questions about what exactly some of those accommodations mean, or want to have more ideas on how to incorporate them into your instruction and class activities. One accommodation that many of our students need are Sentence Stems.  

What is a Sentence Stem?  Check out the video on Sentence Stems from Teacher Tool Kit!  This technique gives students the opportunity to respond in the form of a complete sentence to effectively communicate. Sentence stems provide scaffolding to help students get started in speaking or writing without the added pressure of thinking about how to correctly formulate a response.

Did you know we have a whole section in the the MS Divisional – Teaching Strategies – folder titled “Sentence Stems” dedicated to these?

Simple ideas for incorporating into the classroom:

• Project on front board, model, and encourage students to use during collaborative group work or writing assignments
• Laminate copies for each group or each student to use during activities