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Dear Prep Families,

As Sarah Fleming begins her leave and awaits the arrival of her daughter, I am excited to assume responsibilities as interim Head of the Preparatory School. As the College’s Academic Dean overseeing the program SK-Year 12 and as a member of the Senior Leadership Team, my scope of work over the past several years has included a significant focus on the Prep learning program, in particular the implementation of the IB Middle Years Programme, the development of our approach to design thinking and digital innovation and the implementation of the College-wide pluralism strategy. I look forward to applying this experience as I join David Girard and Gareth Evans to form the Prep Leadership Team, while continuing to serve key aspects of my Academic Dean role. 

Over the course of the fall, Sarah and I have collaborated closely to ensure a smooth transition. During this period, I have enjoyed becoming more involved in daily life at the Prep, getting to know our Prep students and families through the many opportunities that have presented themselves — in classrooms, at assemblies, on the sidelines at games, in the audience for theatre productions, at information evenings and during morning drop-offs. Our students are truly remarkable. The Prep buzzes each day with their curiosity and enthusiasm for learning, their creativity and action-orientation, and their kindness and care for one another and our community. I am honoured to support them and our outstanding faculty and to partner with you as they continue their journey of learning and growth this year. 

As always, David and Gareth continue to lead the Primary and Middle divisions respectively, and are your key contacts for day-to-day questions that are not able to be answered by home form teachers.  

Three-way conferences next week offer an important opportunity for families to engage with their children about their learning and support their reflection and growth. We greatly value the home-school partnership and know that when families are involved and engaged, learning is positively affected. I look forward to seeing those of you who will be on campus in person next week for our conference days and to connecting with you all in the coming days and weeks.

Warmly,

Dr. Julia Kinnear

Head of the Preparatory School

Academic Dean

Year 1 | Update

Winter is nearly upon us and things just seem to take a little bit longer in the winter — recess and dismissal transitions included! I am hopeful you can practice with your child putting on and taking off their snowsuit and boots independently. Thank you in advance for your support in getting us moving a little bit quicker this winter. 

Special thanks to the Year 1 parents volunteers who brought the magic of Diwali to our classroom this week. Students eagerly participated in rangoli and diya crafts and learnt about the festival of lights and the significance of this holiday for members of our classroom community. 

We are concluding our second unit of inquiry, Stewardship. This unit allowed students to investigate how human actions can impact the health of our planet. During our exploration of food waste, students were shocked to learn about the copious amounts of food that gets wasted each day. The students felt motivated to take action on their findings and created a video about food waste. The video provides simple ways to create less food waste and even has some live footage from the UCC lunchroom! Please watch the (most adorable) video! 

A definite highlight of this unit has been the hands-on learning tasks. Check out our sprouting bean plants!

The writers of 1C are working with commendable determination to produce their first story. Students are currently in the publishing stage of the writing process and we look forward to surprising you with our personal narrative stories. 

Year 1 is filled with kindness, curiosity, laughter and of course, an occasional dance party! I recently challenged the boys to donate to the food drive and I am confident they will rise to the occasion. A friendly reminder 1C donation items for the food drive are: diapers (size 4 - 6) and canned tuna. Thank you for your support of this important initiative. 

With thanks,

Riley Carter

Year 1 Form Advisor

Physical education | Update

We were blessed with amazing weather during the fall term, needing to retreat indoors very rarely, and able to maximise the time for our outdoor units. Even as we begin our winter units, and await the readiness of the field bubble, the conditions look favourable to be outside for another week or two.

As we head indoors for the winter term, the breadth or our program expands with the introduction of skating (all students), gymnastics (Year 3, 4, 6 and 7), various net games (e.g. table tennis, pickleball and modified volleyball) in Years 3–7, basketball in Year 4 and some new units that we will be piloting as we seek to further increase the breadth of our program.

Skating units have begun for some students. If you have not already been informed of the impending start of your child’s unit, you will be contacted by their teacher to provide information about this before it begins. All students will get the opportunity to use our impressive skating facilities between now and March Break. 

Sincerely,

Mark Baxter

Learning Leader, Physical Education

Middle design | Update

Dear Prep Families,

Our Year 6 and 7 design programs are in full swing as our students are busy creating their final products for their first units. Our program's foundation is the MYP Design Cycle, which emphasizes identifying a problem, researching and understanding the problem, and iterating possible solutions. Once a preferred solution has been identified, it is created and evaluated against success criteria specified earlier in the process. At the Prep, we focus on developing a design-thinking mindset: be curious, observe the world around you and make improvements. We do not strive to create a perfect solution but rather to create better solutions through iteration and evaluation. 

The Year 6 and 7 programs are structured around three strands: digital media, coding and product design. The students will experience all three strands this year. 

To further generate ideas and spark creativity, they completed pencil-and-paper brainstorming sessions to explore possible designs. These initial ideas were digitized using Corel Vector, a graphic design software program. The designs were framed by design specifications, which were created based on the research completed earlier. These logos will be laser-cut and used to re-create their laptop bag identification card.

The unit's final phase is to evaluate their logos' effectiveness. Students will solicit feedback from their peers and suggest changes/improvements to their designs as part of the iterative process that defines the Design program. Please be sure to ask your child to share their logo with you!

Ms. Sarah Barclay

MYP Learning Leader for Design

Library | Update

We recently hosted a very special Remembrance Day assembly for SK to Year 3 in the library. This event included a vibrant singalong, a Remembrance Day read aloud, a student recitation of the poem “In Flanders Fields”, a trumpeter, and a moment of silence. It was very beautiful to witness the impact of an event like this on the primary students.

Last week our librarians were able to have the chance to visit some of our fellow CIS neighbours in Richmond Hill and Hamilton. This was a great opportunity to meet with other librarians to discuss programming, spacing, and collections. We are fortunate to have a community of librarians to work alongside with both virtually and in person. We were able to share experiences with teaching research and library skills and were able to take away a trove of information to help shape our current library space and programme. 

We have also kept busy in the library this past month with many celebrations such as Literacy Night, Diwali, Halloween and Pride Week. We also had the time to compile the information surveyed by students in their Reading Profile and we were surprised to find that when asked what the library needs more of, every single class voted silent reading time as their number one choice by far. With such high demand we’ve adjusted our teaching to ensure they have sufficient silent reading time. It’s great to survey our community so that valuable data can be extracted and put into practice!

As a reminder, aside from the scheduled class time the library hours are as follows:

Monday: 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Tuesday: 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Wednesday: 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Thursday: 8 a.m. to 4:30p.m.

Students in Year 5, 6, and 7 are welcome to use the space (work on projects, return and borrow books, read) after school without a parent present. All students in Year 4 and under must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. Laptops/iPads are permitted to be in use during this time but we do not allow gaming. 

We are also happy to announce that we are now open for morning recess for both middle years and Year 4 and 5 to read quietly.

Mallory McKinney

Teacher Librarian

EVENT RECAP | PPO Community Reads Book Club

The PPO book club launched on November 14 in the Prep’s Wilder Library. Thanks to PPO representatives, Samira Sud and Kalesha Hack, who launched the book club as a way to enhance our pluralism-related conversations.

For the inaugural book, they chose Boys by Toronto author, Rachel Giese, who attended and facilitated the evening for us. Rachel offered opening remarks to frame our conversation on the ways that the home-school partnership can support a more expansive definition of masculinity to encourage our students to show up as their whole selves. Parent Samira Sud commented that “the book club was a nourishing and supportive space to share and grapple with notions of masculinity. The discussion revealed so much about the importance of intentional parenting and educational approaches. Connecting with a diversity of parents was such a nice treat and a wonderful way to build a cross school community rooted in dialogue, understanding and care.” 

Thanks to everyone who attended and shared their experiences and insights.

Tina Jagdeo

Coordinator, Pluralism and Wellbeing

REMINDER | Uniform purchasing available on campus

DGN-Kilters will be stationed on campus with their mobile sales van, located just outside the William P. Wilder ’40 Arena & Sports Complex on Friday, Nov. 17 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

Prep families will have the opportunity to purchase winter dress uniforms, gym attire, colour house t-shirts and hoodies and facilitate exchanges or returns. 

DONATE | Festive Auction Needs Your Support!

We are in the final weeks of collecting donations for the Festive Auction. Donations in the following categories are particularly appreciated: 

• electronics

• sports tickets

• hotel stays and travel packages

• dining experiences

• food and wine baskets 

• fitness equipment

If you have any credit card reward points you aren't using, please consider redeeming them for merchandise to donate.  One hundred percent of the profit goes directly to initiatives that benefit UCC students. Tax receipts are available for most donations. The Festive Auction will be online and will run from November 30 to December 10.