by Dennis Harter
Middle School Principal
As many students echoed this week, “the break is finally here!” Our students and teachers (and parents) deserve a lot of credit and congratulations for their continued hard work and focus through this long haul since the semester started. While most international schools have had their break weeks ago, our community has pushed on through and carried on with the learning and attention. Everyone deserves a nice rest.
For this reason, students will not have any assessments upon their return. We want families to enjoy the week together and for students to get some rest. We still encourage them to read as much as they can. Some students will return to MAP test make up days, if they have missed any of the days, these past few weeks.
Also upon their return we will be having students reflect upon the formative feedback their teachers gave them in their PowerSchool comments. You may recall that we have moved these comments “off” the report card and had teachers share them earlier in the semester, so that there is still time for students to engage and act on the feedback. (Historically, it has not been particularly helpful to offer students advice on improvement on June 8th!)
Students will read through their comments in advisory class and reflect upon their content, setting goals for the remainder of the school year. We find that this allows students to dial in their focus for the last few weeks of learning.
Comments from all teachers should be published and posted on PowerSchool at the time of reading this eNews article. Please note that due to some maintenance on the our servers, PowerSchool will be inaccessible after Monday of next week. It will be back up and running for the start of school on April 23rd. After students read through them on this first day back, this might be a good time to talk with your child about their feedback.
Have a wonderful break and enjoy the rest and time with your family.
