Things You Should Know if You Go: Using QFT in the Grade 7 “Amazing Race”

Posted on May 2, 2016 by Ms. Gaudet

Question and be Curious The Amazing Race is an integrated project in grade 7 which combines learning in geography, math, Language Arts, French, and physical education. It has become part of a culminating assessment project at the end of our school year. Project based learning, a teaching technique that allows students to work through a big question, happens at many grade levels in our school. In this case, the intermediate teachers worked together to develop an inquiry about travel and what it teaches us. Students conduct research about a particular country, and helps to inform their work on this project in all subject areas. For example, the information that they learn in geography helps inform the scripts they write for their French plays. It culminates in a race around the school to solve challenges related to their learning. We used the Question Formulation Technique (QFT) to determine research questions.

The observations that struck me most about using the technique were:

Students came up with questions related to our learning this year in geography, and then some! There were more interesting conversations about what they could find out about the country than if I had assigned the questions.
Students really appreciate voice and choice at this age, and they felt that they could contribute their ideas without being judged; they also appreciated the ability to choose the questions that most appealed to them.
They were able to come up with thoughtful criteria for prioritizing the questions. I was impressed with their critical thinking at this stage.
They quickly learned to determine whether questions were open or closed, and tried ‘opening up’ some questions that they thought were worth exploring with more depth.
There was buy-in to the research that they were about to do. Since it was related to the Amazing Race, they knew that the research mattered. They were ready to jump right in and find answers to their questions.
Students were able to see subtopics emerge by grouping questions together.
There was very little ‘social loafing’. All students in the group were zoned in and came up with a long list of questions.
We noticed that some of the questions and subtopics related to the history themes we examined this year as well. The students noticed this before I did!

This was the first time I used QFT, but it won’t be the last. Thank you to The Right Question Institute for the guidance in a new technique that I needed to get my classes going. We’re now off and running in the Amazing Race.

Ms. Gaudet
Grade 7 Teacher and Citizenship Coordinator

What does Mental Health mean to you? Let’s talk about it!

Posted on January 26, 2016 by tdrummondkcs

Tomorrow, Wednesday, January 27, is Bell Let’s Talk Day. This is a day where Canadians are encouraged to talk, text, and tweet in order to help encourage conversation around mental health, increase awareness, reduce the stigma, and raise funds to support mental health initiatives across the country (to learn more, go to http://letstalk.bell.ca/en/ ).

Here at KCS, we have made it a priority to address the importance of mental health and wellness for our students and our staff. We strive to promote overall wellness through our programs, curriculum and extra-curricular offerings, and we’re determined to keep the conversation going every day. We encourage students to talk to their teachers, parents, or other adults in their lives when they are feeling as if something may not be quite right. We work to assure all of our students that if they choose to talk to someone here at KCS, they know the conversation will happen without judgement or the need to feel any shame for how they are feeling. And in doing so, we hope that this helps to reduce some of the stigma that exists around mental health.

Over the past couple of weeks, in grades 1 – 8 either your child’s health teacher or I have taken some time to talk about mental health. The conversations and lessons have been tailored to be age- and developmentally appropriate, and aligned with the Ministry of Education Health curriculum. As part of the lessons, and in following one of the Bell Let’s Talk initiatives of answering the question: “What Does Mental Health Mean to You?”, the students were asked to fill in a thought bubble to share their ideas around mental health. These are now displayed in our front lobby and throughout the school. Our youngest students framed their answers by telling what they do when they are worried about something; our grade 4s answered the question “What Makes me Happy?”; and our grade 5 to 8 students and many faculty explained what mental health means to them.

The answers are moving, insightful, and show that there is a growing understanding of what mental health and wellness means at KCS. These answers weren’t prompted; they came from the heart of everyone who chose to share their ideas. Read them, and be inspired to do your part to make sure this is a conversation that will continue each and every day. It is just that important.

Tamara Drummond
Director of Student Life

A Wonderful (Reading) Thing

Posted on January 22, 2016 by Andrea Fanjoy

Kids dash across the playground to update Ms. Pollett-Boyle on their progress. Since I’m the lucky one to distribute certificates when students complete a level, I’m swarmed daily with messages of “I’m done Level 5!” or “I’m now travelling in Egypt!” or the rather direct “Where’s my certificate?” The first week after Christmas holidays I heard more about levels achieved over the break than about presents under the tree.

Lexia at KCS Last year we piloted a new online reading program called Lexia Core 5. It is offered as a supplement that students can use at school and at home, even on holiday if they so choose. It’s an adaptive program that helps develop core reading skills at the level and pace that’s individualized to be just right for every student. It includes re-teaching after mistakes, compelling graphics, and enticing little interludes, all designed to support, motivate, and optimize learning. The pilot was an evident success. One family was so impressed they generously offered to purchase a 3 year school-wide license. Each week, between 40 and 105 young students log on to accelerate their reading skills. — A heartfelt thank you to this family!

It’s wonderful to watch students learn. It’s not always adrenaline-fueled. The pace can be slow. On skills that are difficult, the school includes a fair amount of push and pull on the teachers’ part. So imagine the pleasure watching dozens of students driven to read (even learning the boring stuff like ‘dipthongs’ and other pesky vowel rules!).

Full disclosure, some runaway enthusiasm has led to excessive competition. That was a topic for a recent class meeting, and one more worthwhile lesson thanks to this powerful tool.

Lots of wonderful things happen at KCS and we’ve written about many of them already – the proof is in our blogs. Children swarming me with their achievement in reading? This certainly counts as one more.

Andrea Fanjoy,
Assistant Head, Academics
You can follow Andrea on Twitter @afanjoy.

An Inspired Lunch Hour with Random Acts of Learning

Posted on January 18, 2016 by Andrea Fanjoy

Every Friday at lunch recess, Mme Smith and I host Random Acts of Learning (RAOL) in the KCS Library. It’s a drop-in for any students from grade 2 and up to do, well, random acts of learning. Here’s what happened during last Friday’s lunch hour when 47 students came to RAOL:

Three students from grades 5 and 6 met to talk about a leadership project supporting Syrian refugees
One brought his Arduino kit to build a machine for his grade 7 service learning project
Two others worked on their littleBits ‘keytar’ (their own musical synthesizer)
A few others worked on the video games they’re creating themselves
Multiple others worked on their own independent projects, just because they want to learn more about something; this will culminate in a class presentation (Habit: Share What You Know)
Others are working on writing books, a few of whom are writing to submit a French book in a national contest
The newspaper club came to work on their upcoming edition
Some older students chose to study for exams
Many others just wanted more time to read

That was my lunch hour. How inspiring was yours?

Andrea Fanjoy,
Assistant Head, Academics
You can follow Andrea on Twitter @afanjoy.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Thespians

Posted on December 17, 2012 by teresapollettboyle

KCS Students Perform at Studio Theatre As many of you know, on a Friday back in November Ms. Biljetina and I took a group of eight Grade 8 KCS students to Stratford, Ontario to take part in the Student Players Festival: the fourth and final stage of Stratford’s incredible Teaching Shakespeare program. Our students performed a 10 minute scene from Romeo and Juliet on the legendary Studio Theatre stage in front of peers, parents and professional adjudicators from the Stratford Festival.

Since the students had also been studying S.E. Hinton’s novel The Outsiders, we decided to set our scene in the 1960s – the Capulets became Soc’s and the Montagues turned into Greasers. What happened on that stage was truly magical. Working with a professional stage crew, the kids learned about blocking, sets, timing, and all the other behind-the-scenes machinations that go into a professional stage production. But what they really learned went so far beyond that. Call it The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Thespians:

Take responsible risks: Putting themselves out on the stage to be adjudicated was a huge risk – not only for the kids, but for us directors!
Seek collaboration: The students not only had to work with each other and their teachers to plan the scene, a professional actor from Stratford also stepped in to offer advice and direction.
Think creatively: Benvolio wearing hair gel and a leather jacket? The kids truly had to open their minds to combine these two works of literature.
Find humour: A bumbling police officer introduced the two warring houses of Verona. Hilarious.
Strive for accuracy: The students choreographed a stage combat scene that required precision and planning to ensure that it looked realistic and no one got hurt.
Persist: Memorizing 10 minutes of Shakespearean dialogue. Need I say more?
Adapt: Two minutes before we were about to perform, we discovered one of our props was missing. The students improvised and adapted like pros.

I could not have been more proud of our students, and the way they rose to the challenge. In the words of Bette Davis, “Without wonder and insight, acting is just a business. With it, it becomes creation.” That day on the stage of the Studio Theatre, those eight students learned lessons that were wonderful, insightful and deeply creative, and I was so privileged to have been able to share the experience with them.

Teresa Pollett-Boyle
Drama teacher, Arts Coordinator

Grade 1s outside my office

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Derek Logan

A few blog posts ago, I wrote about what two grade one boys said outside my office during one of our Spirit Days. Moments ago I overheard another two grade one boys says to each other: “I wish my schedule was: “Gym, Gym, Gym, Gym, Lunch, Recess, Recess, Recess.” Dream big, boys. You just can’t make this stuff up. Enjoy your weekend everyone.

Derek Logan
Head of School