Engaging our newcomers!

This past Friday, September the 14th, we held an event to welcome all newcomers to Iroquois Ridge. Invitations were sent, by our PCC (Personal Career Counselling) Team to 60 students, who were also able to invite a friend to join them for a special luncheon, held in their honour. Members of our admin team, PCC staff and other student leaders, including our Student Council Co-Presidents, were introduced to welcome our newcomers and encourage them to get involved in school life....co-curriculars, clubs and special activities. It was interesting to hear from our newcomers and where they have come to us from...certainly from many places around the globe. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Dubai, Bahrain, Korea, China, and South Africa were some of the countries represented. At Iroquois Ridge, we have a very diverse and inclusive school where our emphasis on "Global Learning" and "Global Outreach" attracts many students and their families to us, who enrich our culture tremendously. In addition, this year our diversity has been recognized and we are very, fortunate to have been allocated additional section support for those students who are English Language Learners (ELL's). Mrs. Gordana Panoska is the lead responsible for supporting over 240 students who are newcomers/ELL's  to "The Ridge." As an extension of our work with our ELL's and newcomers, our school will be involved, for the second year, in a Ministry Collaborative Project with White Oaks Secondary School, to further support our newcomers and English Language Learners. Our LINK Crew team and Parent Engagement Team will also be focusing on ensuring that all of our newcomers and newcomer families/caregivers feel welcome, safe and supported at our school. We are very proud to continue to ensure that all of our students have an opportunity to engage with us, fully, and achieve student success in both our curricular and co-curricular program. This caring and inclusive approach toward everything that we do is "who we are" and "will continue to be" as a Ridge Family and Ridge Community. So we welcome our newcomers and wish them every success for a wonderful, school year. You're going to love it here!

Welcome Back!

Hello everyone! It is great to be back at "The Ridge" for 2012/13. We are off to a fantastic start as we welcomed our staff, students and parent community this past Tuesday September 4th.Prior to the school start, our LINK Crew staff and student leaders had an intense training session together to prepare for our Grade 9 Students' Orientation on the morning of the 4th. The purpose of our LINK Crew Program is to ensure and promote a welcoming, safe and inclusive environment for all of our incoming freshmen, and to build relationships, so that each Grade 9 has a senior to "link-to" throughout the year. In Semester 1, our LINK Leaders will provide special activities and events during monthly, Mentoring Mornings for our Grads of 2016. We believe strongly in the value of our LINK Crew Program and are appreciative of the dedication and committment of our LINK Crew Staff and Senior Student Leaders to our Grade 9's.As the school year begins we welcome some new staff to our school: Peter Stevens (Vice-Principal), Joanna Sandford (Program Leader for Special Education), MJ Mendes (Art), Jovan Djurdjevic (Canada & The World/French), Allison Tenn-Yuk (Math), Lorna Lanza (Family Studies) and Julie Smintich (Semester 2-Canada & The World/Family Studies. These folks will contribute greatly to our school and students will benefit from their experience, passion and committment to student success. We also welcomed our Grade 9 parents and caregivers in on Tuesday morning to engage in a Parent Orientation prepared by our Parent Engagement Team and facilitated by one of our Halton's Public Health Nurses. The theme of the session was "How to Help Your Teen Survive in High School and was well attended and appreciated by those who were able to join us. This Friday we will be hosting our :"Live Different" Schoolwide Event. This is our second year bringing in this team of youth, who begin with a multimedia schoolwide assembly in the morning, followed by the facilitation of workshops for 180 of our students in the afternoon. The focus of the workshops is intended to further engage our students in making a difference in their local and global communities. At "The Ridge" we do this very well and "Live Different" Day will remind and inspire us all to get involved and continue to promote service in making our local community and world a better place to be. We look forward to Friday and will celebrate the day with a schoolwide barbecue at lunch for everyone. We hope to set a great tone for the rest of the year with "Live Different Day" and create some buzz and enthusiasm for all of our staff and students as we kick-off 2012/13. So everyone, we are definitely already  gearing-up for another amazing year at "The Ridge" and will absolutely look forward to learning and working together with you to ensure that all of our students, staff and community are highly engaged to ensure success for all! Have a fantastic year everyone!