Holiday Luncheon!

We are very thankful to have such a wonderful and active Parent Engagement Group at our school! Today we experienced one of the highlights of our school year, as our Social Committee (led by April Valera and Kevin McConvey) and members of our parent community, put on an amazing luncheon in our staff room. This is a unique tradition to "The Ridge" and very much appreciated by our staff, who get an opportunity to spend some time together during our common lunch, enjoying casual conversations and a holiday meal together. On behalf of our staff I would like to express our collective thanks for being appreciated and recognized in such a kind and giving manner. As this month celebrates the "Gift of Giving", it is appropriate to pay tribute to our "ever-giving", staff and  parent community for all of their hard work in support of our students and our school. This opportunity at lunch today allowed us all to take pause and be thankful that we continue to enjoy everything that  "The Ridge Community" has to offer as we continue to serve our school and community with great pride!

Luncheon of Champions

This past Friday many of us had the pleasure of celebrating the achievements and successes of our students. The Luncheon of Champions is an event sponsored and organized by our Personal Career Services Team. Teaching staff nominate those students who have really made significant improvements or have made a special contribution in their classroom or who have made a significant achievement through their co-curricular involvement. This is a special occasion where teachers speak on behalf of our champions in a truly authentic and meaningful way. Their heartfelt messages serve as a continued motivation and inspiration for the students who are recognized. Our champions are accompanied by parents/caregivers and significant others who enjoy a lovely lunch together in celebration of their success. Students also receive certificates for their special achievements.Special thanks to Nancy Anstett, Melanie Spelman, Rachel Stecca, Kris Reeve and Georgina Cook (our dynamic and wonderful PCC Team!) for all of your hard work in organizing this event. Additional thanks to our office team (Jennifer Flynn, Susan Cutler and Jane Greenhill) and to our custodial team (David Willis and Joseph Lefresne) for your support behind the scenes. We hope to celebrate with more "champions" next semester as this is truly a special and memorable celebration for our students, staff, parents/significant others and our school!

Student Directed One-Act Plays "A Huge Success!"

Congratulations to our wonderful student actors who presented very intelligent, humourous and thought provoking, one-act plays, last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in our Don Marshall Theatre. "Nobody Famous", "The Apple" and "Mirror Mirror" were the performances selected by our talented casts and all three provided great entertainment for and reflection by a very appreciative audience. Student performers included: Laura Heyland, Maddie Ruton, Kassandra DiCosola, Masi Hamwi, Morgan Kingdon, Serena Schindell, Laura Smith, Kristen Oelke, Cheryl Tansony,Sara Anuseva, Manvir Brar, Emma Coates, Alex Coutin, Mike Cowley, Celine Goulart, Aleeza Ladhani, Hayley McDonald, Jacqueline Petitjean, Della Woodger, Lia Williamson, Maddie Rowe, Ryan Brock, Tessa Chalmers, Sean Coates, Madison Kilpatrick, Amanda McPherson, Angela Nethersole, Hayley Nethersole, Emily Richmond and Kaeylyn Schindell. Thanks to our AV crew: Kyle Hermann and Ryan Harvie and our "Front of the House" crew: Maddy Atherton, Alyssa Dryburgh and Christina Martini for your support of the performances. Special acknowledgement to April Valera, Anjay MacKenzie and Kevin McConvey for your coaching and mentorship of our student performers. Thanks also to our office team: Jennifer Flynn, Susan Cutler and Jane Greenhill for your behind the scenes support in ensuring three days of great performances and in addition, special thanks to Joe Lefresne and David Willis for looking after our theatre needs. Well done everyone!

Congratulations!

Congratulations to our Junior and Senior Boys' Football Teams for their outstanding performances in the Halton Football Championships held at McMaster University. Our Junior Boys' gave their best effort throughout their game against Milton District but had to settle for the silver medal in a 21-6 loss. The score was not indicative of the solid play as our team had some good chances that bounced the other way in Milton's favour. Congratulations to this excellent young team on a great season and status as the Halton Finalists! Special thanks to our coaching team (Kris, Lawrence, Al and Mike) for your outstanding leadership, coaching and mentorship of our young student/athletes. You did us all proud! In the senior game against our cross-town rivals, Oakville Trafalgar, our team was at their peak performance, as they won the game by a wide, 43-0 margin. This was a fantastic win for our boys,who have played all year,with grit and determination. Led by a very solid coaching team (Mike, Scott and Junior), our seniors benefitted from a committment to hard work and exemplary sportsmanship in each and every game they played. You are now Halton Champions and Gold Medallists! Way to go, Ridge! A very special thanks to all of our parent, student and staff supporters and to Marie Guest and the Healthy Active Living Team for organizing ticket sales and seven bus loads of fans to the game. It was a very beautiful day for football and a great opportunity for our school to demonstrate their school spirit and pride in both of our teams! Truly awesome!!

Mid-Term Reflection

We have reached our mid-semester and have an opportunity to reflect upon our successes to date! With the mid-term report and our interview evening, students, staff and parents have time to look closely at student achievement to date, review and refine goals and set new targets for the balance of the semester. A close look at the "Learning Skills" portion of the report card may indicate an area of need. It is often in the learning skills area where students can really focus and work with their teachers to improve, as these skills are really the foundation for student success. Mid-term is also an opportune time to thank our very many students, staff and parents for a very successful start to our co-curricular program in 2011/12. Junior Girls Basketball made it to the play-offs against Georgetown; Senior Boys' Volleyball secured a play-off spot versus Kings' Christian College and our Junior & Senior Boys' Football Teams, finished first in their division, and now both teams head off to McMaster next week to compete in the Halton Football Championships. The Senior win over Burlington Central and the Junior win over Oakville Trafalgar were both come from behind victories which posed very exciting for the fans who attended this double-header play-off game. Thanks to Mr. Rob Harris and his class for marketing the event as one of our fundraisers for "Movember." Over 400 students purchased tickets for this "Buy-In" with the proceeds of over $2,000.00 going towards "Prostate Cancer Research and Awareness." In addition, our Cross Country Team sent a strong contingent to GHAC;we sent two golfers, Alanna & Anikka Haynes to the OFSAA Championships; our field hockey team made it to the play-offs and our Senior Girls Basketball Team and Junior Boys Volleyball Team played tough all season, representing our school with pride and enthusiasm. Great job everyone...we are proud of all of you! We are very thankful to our community for your support of our PINK "Vintage Fashion Show" and our recent Christmas Craft Sale. Your continued involvement and support of our students, staff and school is very much valued and appreciated. We will look forward to our parents and community members joining us in upcoming events which will include the trip to McMaster to support our Football Teams and the "Student Directed Plays", held in our Theatre, from November 30th - December 3rd. Your participation with us in these co-curricular activities means a lot to us and to our student athletes/actors and our staff coaches/mentors also appreciate your support. On a last note, I want to thank our staff for continuing to be so dedicated in support of our students' success. You are there for our kids whether in the classroom or outside of the classroom. Without you as excellent examples and role models for our students to aspire to we would not be as successful as we are! Thank-you for your committment and promotion of our curricular and co-curricular programs. You are the very best!

Festival of the Corn!

Great evening tonight at STUDCO's first ever "Festival of the Corn!" Not only did our students, staff and community enjoy the corn roast, but they were also treated to some great entertainment. Country music, our own in-house, teacher "Blue Grass Band" (Mr. Beck, Mr. Dahlinger, Ms. Grieve, and Mr. Schaffer), our newly formed student "hip-hop" sreet dancers, lots of games, treats and a scary movie to boot! Our Student Council also incorporated the act of "giving" as part of the evening. A "Wishing Well" was available for donations to build a well in Kenya; student reps of our PINK Campaign provided items for purchase to support our continue PINK Campaign for breast Cancer and donations were accepted at the door for our local food bank. The point of the evening for STUDCO was to combine a school event while also raising awareness in support of  a local, regional/provincial and global cause. Well over 200 folks attended this highly successful "First Festival of the Corn!" The first of many to come, for sure! Thanks everyone for your support of this event and special thanks to STUDCO, COMMCO and our staff, students and community for a job well done!

Ridge Spirit!

This past week at "The Ridge," truly exemplified our "Ridge Spirit!" Our Special Education Resource Team and members of our Personal Career Counselling Team held three "Learning at Lunch" sessions with our staff to review students in Grades 9 -12. The sessions were very well attended and are a tribute to the committment of our staff who came to  learn more about the learning needs and profiles of our students. On Tuesday September 27th, our whole school participated in the Terry Fox Walk/Run in support of cancer awareness and research. Thanks to the Healthy Active Living Team for organzing this event and setting the tone as we head into our "Pink Campaign" this upcoming month, which will focus on a full month of education, special events and fundraising in support of Breast Cancer awareness and prevention. On Wednesday September 28th to Friday September 30th, our Grade 10 Students headed to the Tim Horton's Camp near Brantford to continue to build relationships together with their Senior Synergy Leaders and Synergy Staff Team. Our Grade 9 students participated in their first dance, sponsored by our Student Council. This was a very successful event...with many more events to come through our Link Crew and Student Council Leaders. A "new teacher" meeting was held with all staff who we have been very fortunate enough to bring aboard. It was a pleasure to host this meeting as we oriented staff to our school and heard some pretty amazing and positive "first impressions" from them. At the start of the week, we had a very well attended School Council meeting which was chaired by Celine Steeves. This was a great opportunity to network together and share in discussion and feedback about our first month back at school, from a student, parent and staff perspective. We hope to see more folks out at our next meeting on November 21st at 7pm. Parents & caregivers are also reminded about the upcoming Tuesday at 10/7 to be held this Tuesday October 4th. Please check our website for more details! As we leave September and Ridge Spirit Month, we now begin October...our "Partners in Pink" Month. We hope to engage all of our school and community in the many activities and events that we will be hosting to raise awareness and funds on behalf of those afflicted by Breast Cancer. Together we can make a difference and together we will ensure that "The Ridge" leads the way in supporting this very worthy cause!

Fall Greetings!

Hello everyone! Yes...we are back to school at "The Ridge" and heading into our 3rd week! We are off to a fantastic start in 2011/12 and really happy to be gearing up for an amazing Semester 1. In our first week, we held our "Absolute Think Day" which allowed us to gather as an entire school to listen to a motivational assembly which focused on the theme of "Live Different". Through a series of musical performances, including Canadian Idol, Brian Melo and his bandmates, multimedia and personal story-telling, the "Absolute Youth Team" challenged our students and staff to make changes personally.... to get involved in our community (both locally & globally) and make a real and meaningful difference in the lives of others. In the afternoon, workshops were held for 9 student groups and many individuals from various classes, where the learning and sharing went deeper. The students were given time with their "Think Team" facilitator to brainstorm ideas on how they could "make a difference" in 2011/12.This was a great way to kick off our school year, and as active as we are,  in the school community and the world...we look forward to greater things to come in the next several months as our students get mobilized and put their ideas into action as they "Live Different!" We also welcomed our Grade 9 students and parents on the first day back, with our Link Crew engaging our 9's and our Parent Engagement Group and Public Health Nurse engaging our Grade 9 parents in a session providing tips on "How to Ensure A Successful Transition  for your Teens!" Ensuring a welcoming and  inclusive environment for our Grade 9 students and parents, the morning's activities got us off to a terrific start as we began the building of  new relationships with our newcomers and Class of 2015! This past Friday, we held a "New Student Luncheon" hosted by our Personal Career Counselling Team which was very well attended and much appreciated. We also welcome many new staff for 2011/12. Kate Rehm (VP),Kris Reeve (Student Success), Rachel Stecca (PCC), Michael Fraser (Vocal Music), Caitlin Grieve (French), Jeff Yuill (French), James Caldwell (Canada & the World) Lisa Weir (Special Edcuation) and Susan Hammond (Science). We welcome back Karl Mustoe (Art), Nancy Zigrovic (French), Shalini Singal (Math), Gordana Panoska (English) and Anjay MacKenzie (English/French). All of these folks add so much strength to an already strong teaching staff and we look forward to working with them this year!  So...it's off and running into Week 3, with many of our co-curriculars, teams, clubs and activities ready to formally spring into action. We hope for great success in 2011/12 and invite all of you out to support our students, coaches and teacher/mentors as they engage in athleticcompetition, the "arts", student leadership and additional special events and activities. "Go Ridge!"

Summer Reflections and "Think Day!"

Hello everyone! I hope all of you are enjoying a wonderful summer with family, friends and those you love. Over the summer months all of us are engaged in relaxation, recreation and activities that we are interested in and passionate about. This is the time when we actually do reflect on many things, whether they be professional or personal. For me, I can take a look back at a full first year as Principal of Iroquois Ridge High School and truly be proud of a great year had by our staff, students and parent community. I am very thankful for the support that has been provided thoughout this first year and look forward to even greater things in 2011/12. One of the events, that we are finalizing for early September, is an opportunity for all of our students to participate in...is a "Think Day", which is planned for September 8th. Our entire student body will participate in an energizing and motivational assembly that will set the tone for the first semester. As a follow-up to this event, many of our students will be involved in smaller workshops where they will work with our "Think Team" presenters to consider ways in which they can continue to support and engage in the local and global community. Through the strength and participation of our students we know that great things happen and will continue to happen in 2011/12. Our students are highly involved in service to others whether it be through their leadership in the community or through charitable activities that are sponsored by the many clubs and groups at our school. Whether the focus be a local one or global one our students shine in this area, which bodes well for all of our futures. Our school and students will continue to be highly involved in "service" and leadership on behalf of others and we look to our "Think Day" event to kick-start off our year in a very positive manner. Special thanks to the team of Monique Gazan, Erin Leahy, Marie Guest, Tiffany Olmstead, Tara Connor, Kathryn Patterson and Jacquie Schettler for supporting this event on everyone's behalf. It will be great!

"Your Best You!"

This morning we had two great assemblies...one for our girls and one for our boys on the theme of self-esteem, body image and being "Your Best You!" Teacher Virginia Gingras presented her story to girls in Grades 9-12, while World Guinness Book of Record Holder, Rapper Duane Gibson presented to our boys Geades 9-12. Duane's message focused on "Staying Driven" for success by practising hard, sacrificing and persevering to reach your goals. Virginia's message included a challenge to our girls to be the best they can be despite what others may think or say. She challenged our girls to be strong and look out for each other
and to love themselves for who they are. Both assemblies were well received by our students and the promotion of self-esteem and wellbeing resonated well with the respective student audiences. Special thanks to Kathryn Patterson who organized the assemblies with Virginia. Thanks also to COMMCO for supporting our assemblies with the usual excellence and precision. It was a great morning!

ASCD Virtual Conference

Some of you may not know that Iroquois Ridge is an Affiliate/Mentor Site for the Association for Supervision and Curriclum Development, based out of Alexandria, Virginia. The ASCD represents more than 160,000 educators from 148 countries and 60 affiliates. The organization includes superintendents, supervisors, principals, teachers, professors of education, and school board members. As a mentor site for ASCD we were asked to present at a "Virtual Conference" last Friday. The presentation focused on the origin, evolution and successes of our Parent Engagement Program. We were fortunate enough to get a first hand experience with Adobe Connect Pro in the delivery of our powerpoint and video presentation to educators from around the world. As a mentor site, all participants of the conference had access to our presentation, had an opportunity to ask questions and access resouces, as a follow-up. This opportunity to participate with Adobe was a great learning for our team who got a chance to hone their 21st Century Learning Skills. Congratulations to Sara Severin (Parent Engagement Co-ordinator), Nancy Anstett (Program Leader of Personal Career Counselling) and Mary Tabak (Public Health Nurse) for preparing and presenting our program for ASCD. Special thanks to Al Samsa for his technical support on the day of the conference. Thanks also to student-Alex Theodore for filming our parents and caregivers, who offered exellent testimonials on behalf of our program. We had a very positive response from our ASCD partners, of which we are very proud. We hope to continue to work on projects with ASCD such as this as an affiliate/mentor to share our learning with others in the world-wide professional learning community.Well done Ridge Team! We are very proud of you for your leadership and ambassadorship on behalf of our parents, students, staff and school!

Relay for Life

What do over 600 students, staff and members of our parent community and extended community do for a great cause on a Friday Night? They participate together in the "Relay for Life" to raise funds for cancer. Not only is this a Friday night event but the "Relay" extends all night into Saturday morning! Teams of students have put their energy, heart, souls and emotions into walking all night on behalf of those they love and others they know who have been afflicted by and perhaps succumbed to cancer. The evening began with a "Survivors' Reception" followed by speeches by our students who have lost someone to cancer. Although, the rain started to fall and the skies got stormy this did not dampen our young people's spirits as they moved inside and carried on the event with great enthusiasm. Students were inspired by their team mates as well as some all night entertainment by numerous rock bands and other fun filled activities in our theatre and "street." Tonight they are all camping out in our school while continuing to walk well into the wee hours. Many parents, caregivers and members of our community came out to assist as did our staff, for which we are truly thankful. The goal is to try and reach the $50,000 mark...which would be an outstanding achievement by our young people. It is moments like these where we can feel so proud of our kids and know that the future will be bright in their capable hands. We are proud of all of you for your committment and caring...you are all outstanding!

Spring Mid-Term Update

We are at the mid-term of Semester 2 and much is happening on the academic & co-curricular front! Congratulations to our Halton Skills participants who represented our school so well.  Gold Medals to: Daniel Allen & Vicky Mendonca (GIS) and Sarah Steeves (Apparel Design); Silver  for Gabby Frank (Digital Photography) and two Bronze Medals to: Molly Schoo (Apparel Design) and Nasser Manasreh (Graphic Design). Daniel, Vicky, Sarah and Nasser will represent our school at the  Provincial Skills Event in Waterloo and we wish them the very best as they move on to this next level of competition. Recently, Iroquois students' Mack Darragh and Marni Oldershaw competed in the Candian World Trials for Swimming. Mack qualified for the Junior Worlds for four events. He claimed the Bronze Medal in the Senior Men's 200m Butterfly, which will qualify him for the World University Games and he finished 4th in the 400m IM, while also qualifying in the 100m Fly and 200m I.M.. Marni qualified for the Junior Worlds in both the 400m and 200m I.M and was the only Junior participating in the Senior A finals coming 6th & 7th in her races. Both student/athletes will represent Canada at the Junior Worlds' in Lima, Peru this upcoming August. We are very proud of these fantastic results! Best of luck, Mack & Marni!Many other special events have taken place over the past week.Nadja Halilgebovich brought her message of Peace & Hope in speaking with our Canada & the World, English and Drama Students. We hosted the "Relay of Life" Assembly promoting this school &  community event which will take place on May 13th. We also hosted "R-U Ready for High School" for students transitioning to our school in the Fall of 2011. Special thanks to our Link Crew, PCC & Special Ed. folks, who welcomed our Grads of 2015, with such enthusiasm and encouragement. You provided a very warm and inclusive morning for our incoming Grade 9's. Thanks so much for that! 20/31 of our students finished in the Top 25% of the Waterloo Math Contest, as our "Mathletes" continue to represent our school very well. Way to go! This week we are getting  ready for our Student Coucil Election Assemblies on Wednesday and immersing our students in the "Your Best You" presentations this upcoming Thursday. The theme for our "boys' and girls' specific" assemblies will focus on Body Image/Wellness & Self Esteem. We really look forward to a great morning! 12 Ridge Students will soon participate in a Ministry "Speak-Up" event at the Mainway Arena. This will be a great way to have our Ridge Student Voice heard at the provincial level and an excellent networking opportunity for our students. On the academic side, our midterm reports will be distributed during Period 1 on Thursday April 21st, followed by our Parent Interview Evening on the 28th to be held from 6:30 - 9pm. We encourage our parents and caregivers to attend this evening and look forward to your participation and continued partnership with us! As you can see, the Spring brings with it a flurry of activity and as we head into the home stretch, the intensity will continue to build for all of us.We look forward to an excellent second half of the semester as we continue to support and encourage student success for all of our students. We also look forward to the continued celebration of student achievements both academically and in our co-curricular programs.

"Mathletes" Breakfast of Champions

This morning we honoured many of our math students who have recently competed in math competitions through McMaster University and Sun Life Financial.

Thanks to Laura Barsan, Allison Etherington and the math team for encouraging our students to take on these challenges. We are very proud of those who represented our school and would like to recognize the following students for their outstanding achievements:

Math@Mac On-Line Competition:

Grade 9 - First Place Winners
Keith Hustad & Mitchell Gour

Honourable Mentions - Kathleen Chung & William Choi
                                    Nathan Conrad & Mitchell Gour

Sun Life Financial Canadian Open Mathematics Challenge (Top 25%)
Raphael Koh (Grade 10)
Christine (Yunjeong) Kim (Grade 10)
William Choi (Grade 12)

It was a wonderful celebration this morning with members of our parent community joining us as we recognized the fine efforts of our Ridge "Mathletes!"Congratulations to our students and best of luck in future competitions.

Excellent Week!

We have certainly had a very busy and wonderfully, engaging past week at "The Ridge." Many of our coaches and student athletes are into the play-off season with many successes having happened and on the horizon! Our Boys' Hockey Team coached by Mike Tarantino & Tim Coe won the first of their two-game semi-final versus Nelson 6-2 last Friday. Next game is tomorrow for our boys who could advance to the Halton Final with either a win or a tie. Our swimmers and snowboarders are off to the OFSAA championships in the very near future. Congratulations to Coach Jeff Warner and Coach Deb Remo for their success with our team and best of luck to our provincial level swimmers Kristian Kannigan, Marnie Oldershaw, Saad Mobushir, Steven Ramsay, Christopher Green and Nathan Halliday. Our snowboarders are off to Ottawa this week for their provincial championships. The following student/athletes will be representing our school: Kelsey Wimbush, Nicole Klemenchuk, Charlie Glassman, Ashley Copeland, Kassandra Dicosola and Jeremy Lister. Two honourable mentions go out to Adam Cameron who qualified for OFSAA but is unable to go and to Natalie LaMarche who finished 2nd overall in the OFSAA qualifier, one place short of a trip to this provincial championship. Thanks to our Ski & Snowboard Team coaches for their dedication and committment: Karen Normet, Stephania Augello, Michelle McCutcheon and Virgina Gingras. Congratulations also go out to members of our Curling Team who recently competed in Halton Semi-Final and Final Competition. Our Novice Team: Riley Dane, Liam Gracey, Eric Hamilton, Dryden McComish and Ryan Woolcock represented our school in semi-final competition while our Intermediate Team: Matt McCallum, Lauren Mateyko, Jason Panthaky and Christopher Wright took the silver medal
in the Halton Finals versus Oakville Trafalgar High School. Kudos to Ellen Irving and Kristen McCoy for their excellent coaching and a great season! In the midst of all of our sporting achievements, 28 teams competed in the Inside Ride held in our gym this past Thursday. This event created a very positive and
spirited atmposphere in our school, as the teams, consisting of 5 participants each, cycled to raise funds for
youth with cancer. We raised well over $16,000.00. We are truly proud of this accomplishment as our goal was $7,00.00. Thanks to everyone who participated and cheered on our cyclists...you did a great job! We look forward to next year's event where we expect even more teams to get involved. Thanks to Christine Busby and Marie Guest for organizing this event which was a highlight for our school this year. Special thanks also go out to Kathryn Patterson for organizing the recent Create, Commit, Change Conference for over 300 intermediate students which was held at our school. This event highlighted many guest speakers and was facilitated by a number of our senior students and graduates from Iroquois Ridge, all with the goal of inspiring future student leaders in Halton. Student conferences such as this allow for student voice and opportunities for students from many schools in Halton to network and share their leadership ideas with one another. A fantastic day and event for our school. Well done everyone!

Welcome to Semester 2!

After an excellent Semester 1 for our students, staff and school we look forward to even greater achievement and accomplishments for this semester. At this time we would like to welcome new staff who have joined us and are really pleased that they come to us with outstanding credentials, enthusiasm and most importantly are all very "student centered." We know that they will add great value on behalf of our students and contribute greatly to the life of our school. Joining our English Team, we welcome Anjay Mackenzie and Gordana Panoska. For Canada and the World and Special Education, we extend a warm welcome to Paul Beck. Danny Devine returns to our school as a member of our Business Team. Stephanie Briggs will soon be joining our Math Team and we look forward to welcoming Phoebe Ching in the very near future to our Math Team. We will soon be hiring an Art teacher to our school for this semester as Karl Mustoe takes a leave.
I would be amiss if I didn't recognize the many contributions of Richard Bowering, who has recently retired as of the end of Semester 1. We will miss Richard and wish him the very best on his next journey...thanks for your support of students, staff and our school over the past many years. Nicole Brinton also leaves us as she immerses herself  in the business world. We wish her continued success in the future. As Semester 2 begins, I wish everyone the very best for a successful semester. We look forward to great things both inside and outside of the classroom by our students and staff. A special thanks to our parent community, who continue to support our students, staff and school in such a fervent manner. Together we are making a difference each and every day in support of success for all of our students. I look forward to our continued partnership as we ensure that "The Ridge" maintains its' status as one of the exemplary schools in our province.

Busy Season

Staff and students are presently immersed in the "busy season", with summatives about to be completed followed by our in-class examinations. Our admin team has been fortunate to get into our classrooms to observe and participate in some of the summative activities with our students. In particular, I would like to thank Mrs. Goodwin-Barnes for graciously allowing me to participate as an "Iron Chef" Judge for our Grade 10 Foods Class. The students were outstanding as they fully engaged in "Battle Orange." A very enjoyable experience as students not only prepared very delicious dishes but were also very enthusiastic and creative in their presentations. Each team donned "spirit wear" and team "cheers" were really well done! Indeed a very, relevant and meaningful "quality assessment task" for our students. Our Grade 9 math students recently wrote their EQAO tests and we will be reviewing the results with our Numeracy Team in the very near future.We wish all of our students the best of luck during the upcoming formal examination period and hope for a great outcome in overall student achievement for all of our students! With the ongoing support,coaching and mentoring by our staff our students should have some terrific results forthcoming. Please be reminded that the exam schedule runs from Thursday January 20th to Tuesday January 25th. Should there be a snow day...January 26th will be the make-up day. On Friday January 28th there will be an opportunity for exam take-up for our students between 8:30 and 10:30 am. Our professional learning day will take place on Monday January 31st and Semester 2 begins on Tuesday February 1st. Report cards will be distributed on Thursday February 3rd. Best of luck everyone as we get into our final assessment & evaluation period. We will look forward to reviewing all of our students' results during our Promotion Meetings to be held on January 27th!

Great Week! - January 3-7th

It is hard to believe we are a full week back at school! Right from the "get-go", students and staff were immersed in summatives; clubs and teams were back in full swing and our Parent Engagement Group was back in action with Tuesday's at 10 & 7. Highlights of the week for me were visiting classes to see some of the summative activities that are happening in such a rich, authentic and relevant manner and also observing some of our teams as they returned to competition. In particular, congratulations to our Senior Girls' Volleyball Team for a very exciting, upset win over Loyola and to Rookie Coach Norgaard for such an impressive result! I enjoyed a great session with our parent group who were provided with tips for "de-stressing" and "pre-stressing" both for themselves and their young people, who are venturing into an intense summative and exam period. Our student council hosted a "Red & White Day" in support of our World Junior Hockey Team followed by a Wednesday night viewing of the Gold Medal on the "Big Screen" in our building. Although, our Juniors fell short, it was great to see the Canadian Pride in our building encouraged by our student council, students and staff! On another note, we had the privilege of hosting Oakville's Mayor Burton in Mr. Bowering's Careers Class. What a great opportunity for our students to have the Mayor share with them his views on how to be "successful and happy in life." His message was well received by those in attendance. Thanks to Mr. Bowering and his class for inviting me to attend! Next week we have another busy week as we look toward our Grade 8 Parent Info Night on Thursday January 13th (6:30-8:30 pm) and Grade 9 EQAO Math Testing on Friday January 14th & 17th. While continuing with our summative period we also have a special evening session planned called "Cocoa and Cram" for our Grade 9 students who are completing summatives and preparing for exams for the first time. Thanks to our Link Crew Student Leaders, Ms. Klokoff and Mrs. Forde for organizing this in our library on Wednesday January 12th from 6:30-8:30pm. We encourage all of our Grade 9's to come out and get some study tips and mentoring from our sophomore/senior students. Our admin team will also be hosting two "Just Do It" sessions on Tuesday January 11th and Wednesday January 12th from 3-4pm in The Ridge Room for students who need extra support in completing their summative work. As you all can see, we are all right back at it in support of the success of all of our students and I would like to extend my thanks to all of our staff who are working diligently in encouraging and motivating our students to achieve "best ever" results! Your hard work and dedication is greatly appreciated.