At the end of the race, we like to hear cheers!
Good starts need great endings and successful endings lead to strong starts.
“We seek endings, even as we clamor for more, too. It’s the bow and the falling curtain at the end of the play. We need that, and deep down we know it, even as we’re shouting encore! More!” (Peter Damien “The Importance of Endings”)
Rites of Passage
2017-2018 year has come to an end and we have witnessed many rites of passage. Kindergarten, that magical year of beginnings, is over with students holding their heads high ready to walk into their new Grade One environment. Waiting for them are excited, passionate teachers and a whole new world of literacy independence. Our Grade Six students are demonstrating exemplary evidence of empowered learners ready for the new independence that comes in Junior High. Our Grade Nine’s and Twelve’s are ready! As graduates of Junior and Senior High School, their new future is on their doorstep and we have every confidence in their readiness. Each learner, teacher and student, has grown and changed, and there is a sense of well-being and pride in what has been accomplished this year. We are ending strong!
During the course of the year, we have heard Profound Learning spoken of with a growing sense of maturity by both teachers and students. Listening to our students articulate and identify what they know and what they are ready to learn tells us that teachers are providing them with the context for learning. In addition it creates the conditions under which engaging experiences excite and keep students involved.
We seek endings, even as we clamor for more, too. It’s the bow and the falling curtain at the end of the play. We need that, and deep down we know it, even as we’re shouting encore! More!
Celebrating
Hats off to staff and students for many wonderful highlights – a few of which are:
- A brand new website – hope you are loving it
- A new Academy entrance – almost ready!
- A number of trips – SALTS sailing, Québec, Tobago, Japan – opening the world to our students
- Athletics tournaments – encouraging physical health and pride in accomplishing hard things
- A Film Festival, the Battle of the Bands and a fantastic Christmas concert in the magnificent Bella Theatre – learning to present with excellence and creativity
- School spirit in action through Crazy Hat Day, Crazy Christmas Sweater Day that bring in funds towards supporting our two
Compassion Canada children, as well as other charities both local and beyond – thinking about others with social responsibility - Growing robotics team where the Grade 7 girls rocked their competition
- Imaginal BOLD Challenges inspired by the X-Prize for complex, innovative thinking clearly demonstrated by our students
- Winning the Gold medal for the number one elementary choir in Alberta
- Strong academic results with graduates leaving to universities of their choice. Click here to learn more about our 2018 graduates.
- Highest ranking of excellence on the provincial accountability pillars where data was collected through student, teacher and parent surveys
- Authentic encounters with faith in God
- New internally created software to support learning – Geenius 2.0
Thank you parents for your contribution to:
- Supporting and encouraging your children and their teachers – it means a lot
- Engaging in many fundraisers that have provided additional PE equipment, musical instruments, special classroom programs, a residency dance program, additional iPads for classroom use, and many other programs and equipment that enhance student learning.
- Starbucks treats that surprise our teachers!
- IPOD leadership and all the volunteers – can’t do it without you!
- Smiling in the parking lot!
Good and Never Done
Here at Master’s we have committed to a vision for empowered and engaged learning and we work hard at delivering on this promise. We are reminded of President John F. Kennedy’s words, “We will go to the moon. We will go to the moon and do other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard.” We have much to be grateful for as we celebrate the end of an excellent, hardworking school year with our Master’s community. Learn, unLearn and reLearn is an ongoing cycle.
We echo the thought Natalie Portman included in her graduate address at Harvard in 2015, “good and never done”. We end with a Charles Dickens’ ancient and ever relevant blessing for your summer: “And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless us, everyone!” (A Christmas Carol, 1843)
