May 30 Meeting at the School

Dear Stevenson Parents,

We will be making a few changes in our classrooms for next year. We want to make you aware of those changes and invite you to an information meeting at the school on Tuesday, May 30 at 7:00pm for an opportunity to find out more about the changes and ask questions.

Over the years, our school continues to grow, as we have more houses being built and more families moving into the area. As a result, each year we need make changes to our classrooms depending on the number of students at each grade level. We want to create a more consistent school model so that students will remain with the same teacher for several years and teachers will teach the same grade levels more consistently.

We will have 4 – Grade 1/2 classrooms and 6 – Grade 3/4/5 classrooms going forward. There are many benefits to having combined grades or multi-age classrooms:

• Students stay with the same teacher for several years, which results in a stronger relationship.
• Students’ anxieties are reduced, and they are more confident and comfortable as they know the classroom expectations and routines for several years.
• Students are more willing to take risks in their learning.
• Teachers know their students better over the years, resulting in programming better for student achievement.
• Increased teaching time.
• Students have greater opportunities to be exposed to more concepts, skills, and big ideas resulting in better learning.
• Students challenging themselves more, resulting in accelerated learning.
• Parents, students and teachers have a better opportunity to build relationships, resulting in better communication and connections between home and school.
• Teachers have a bigger team to plan with and to share in each other’s strengths.
• Students have more opportunities for peer leadership and role modeling.

This model of having combined and multi-age classrooms lends itself well to current research in education that states:

• “Knowing the children we teach – individually, culturally, and developmentally – is as important as knowing the content we teach. Knowing the families of the children we teach and inviting their participation is essential to children’s education. How adults at school work together is as important as individual competence: lasting change begins with the adult community.” (Katz, 2012).
• In education, “what truly matters is teachers’ expertise. How can we get collective impact? How can we resource our schools to value the expertise that they have; to increase the expertise they have?” (Hattie, 2017).

Please find listed below the classrooms for the 2017-18 school year:

Kindergarten Rm 7 -        Mrs. Grant

Kindergarten Rm 8 -        Miss Griffiths

Grade 1/2 Rm 9  -              Mrs. Lowe

Grade 1/2 Rm 12  -            Mrs. Buchanan

Grade 1/2 Rm 14 -             Mrs. Hamm

Grade 1/2 Rm 16  -            Mrs. Hardy

Grade 3/4/5 Rm 3  -           Ms. Beazley

Grade 3/4/5 Rm 4  -           Mr. Trembath

Grade 3/4/5 Rm 5  -           Mrs. Kaczmarz

Grade 3/4/5 Rm 11  -        Miss Long

Grade 3/4/5 Rm 17 -          Ms. Neufeld

Grade 3/4/5 Rm 18 -          Mrs. Hauta

 

We hope to see you on May 30 at the school to share more about this exciting opportunity for your children and for our teachers, and to answer your questions. As always, please feel free to call the school if you would prefer (204-832-1359).

 

Thank you for your time,

 

Stevenson Staff