Highlights and Noteworthy Items of our 2011 - 2012 School Year...
Spring brings many opportunities for our students to demonstrate their excellence as they approach formal testing season. Drivers, please ensure that you 'Give our Kids a Brake'so they may reach their full potential.
A successful year of achievements are left in the wake of the 2010 - 2011 school year. In addition to the many engaging curricular, co-curricular, and extra curricular activities offered to our students, we are also very proud of the excellent results our students achieved - demonstrated through the Provincial Achievement Test results in grades three, six and nine in addition to Highest Level of Achievement Tests and Canadian Test of Basic Skill tests. Our Stratford Eagles are students who participate fully, work hard and study diligently in our Cogito program through a rigorous, enriched, liberal arts curriculum. Integrated into this academic focus are our daily Character Education traits, based on the Safe and Caring Schools initiative, which develops "Three Rs": Respect, Responsibility and Results. Daily announcements, positive behaviour referrals, and "Lunch with the Principal" help move our "Three Rs" forward. In addition to the three Rs, teachers will be developing moral literacy around the themes of perseverance, integrity and honesty through the months of February through June.
Although much light has been shed on the character development of students, it is done in careful balance with the academic component of our program. It is imperative that parents continue to strengthen their commitment to the Cogito Principles through closely monitoring their son/daughter's homework agenda for assignments, quizzes and exams. Teachers will be ensuring that homework is measured, meaningful and relevant to ensure that students exercise their cognitive and metacognitive development. Parents, please visit our SchoolZone for regularly updated school newsletters and up-to-date information pertaining to your son/daughter's programming at Stratford. These initiatives, collaboratively orchestrated by Stratford Staff, parents and students, is another indicator of how our rigorous Cogito program respectfully engages students in relevant learning opportunities through authentic relationships - at school and in our surrounding community.
On April 21st, students from Stratford School took part in Edmonton Public Schools’ third annual Earth Day Lights Out Challenge. This event was started to create awareness and action on environmental and energy conservation across the district. Students and staff turned off lights, computers, and even Smartboards for at least one hour or more.
At Stratford, we succeeded in turning off approximately 500 lights. This helped us reduce our energy consumption by 52.70 kilo-Watt-hours (kWh). This also meant a reduction of 4.85 kilo-grams of carbon dioxide (CO2). As a school district, there were over 50 schools and departments combining to turn off over 20,000 lights and energy consuming devices. The 2086 kWh of electricity saved would equal to that used by 100 homes over a full year in Alberta.
Our commitment to the global community is exercised through our purposeful engagement in 21st century literacies - in this instance, paying conscious effort to reduce our eco-footprint one watt at a time.
Additional highlights: - Stratford supports the Racism Free campaign. Stratford Snow Angel program - student volunteers make a huge difference helping clear snow in the Jasper Park community. - Grade One students initiated a Mitt and Hat drive and the Junior High Leadership and Ethics classes coordinated a Food Bank drive through the month of December. - Over $3000 was raised by our students for charity and people in need . - Our Students made a significant donation of non-perishable food items for the Food Bank. - Our Grade One classes conducted a VERY successful Mitt and Hat Drive for young people in need. Over 200 pairs of mitts and hats were donated. - Our HIGHLY successful Book Fair and Book Drive! 4700 books were added to our school library through the collaborative effort of parents, students and staff. - Junior High Mathematics students hosted our third-annual Math Fair at Telus World of Science and at Stratford school, with Mrs. Semenko at the lead. Special guests, parents, students and staff solved a plethora of problems - mathematically speaking of course. - Check out our engaging Go Public initiative - promoting public education. Click here to listen to our version of I Got A Feeling...
To all parents and community members, we thank you for collaboratively and cooperatively working with our staff as we nurture our student's love of knowledge through a positive, respectful environment focused on a rigorous, knowledge-based program -a program leading toward academic excellence!
We reduce our eco footprint by posting all of our newsletters, interim reports and report cards on SchoolZone.
