What a delight it was to announce that we had secured a site, a remarkable one, and let our community know that we will be opening our Senior School in September 2021.
One of the best parts of the announcement is that we can now speak more fully about all that we’ve been working on. The Senior School website shares our new location and many of the special features we have in mind for enriched student learning. The Town Hall, taking place tomorrow, February 11th at 7:00 p.m. in Canada Hall, will allow a number of us to speak and answer the questions that I know are currently bottled up inside many. And our new Senior School e-newsletter has been getting steady sign-ups and will provide dedicated monthly updates as of February 19th. We encourage every interested follower to sign up on our website so you can be sure to learn about our ongoing progress and any important dates coming up.
And while we’re thrilled to share all the details with every adult who’s keen to listen, there’s one group that it has been a particular pleasure to engage.
Last week our grade 6 and 7 students learned that they will have the opportunity to meet with our architect and participate in discussion around design. Mrs. Drummond and I will also gather their thoughts on furnishings. We arranged a short trip to our site last week so they could see the building from the outside (going inside has to wait a bit longer) and so they could also start getting to know the nearby greenspace. They saw the Etobicoke Stormwater Management Facility, with ducks and tagged swans swimming in the frigid water. They saw the Humber Bay Butterfly Habitat, and the Home Garden that was distinctly designed to support various species of butterflies in their different life cycle stages. Our grade 6s got a peek at the wetlands a little to the west, and our grade 7s visited the Air India 182 Memorial in Humber Bay Shores Park East. During our walk, they were challenged to look, listen, and think of how this intriguing environment could connect with each of their school subjects.
Here’s a sample of how they said they could use this outdoor space for learning:
- Poetry and descriptive writing
- Building a working model of the Stormwater Management Facility
- Learning to sail
- Getting permission from the city to create French language versions of the many signs describing the area
- Painting and sketching
- Hosting our “Wake Up With the Arts” events on the boardwalk
- Calculating the volume of water in the Stormwater Facility
- Investigating the history of Air India Flight 182, the history of the neighborhood (including the Mr. Christie cookie factory), and the history of the Indigenous communities that used to inhabit this part of the city
This has been a special couple of weeks. Taking the students to our new site and introducing them to the endless learning that’s within a minute’s walk was a highlight. KCS now has two great campuses which our Junior and future Senior School students can now embrace as their neighbourhoods. There are so many possibilities. The learning has just begun for us all.
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