Every time we have an Open House, we learn that 90% of the prospective students are coming to us on the recommendation of a current or former Mentor/TEAM family and this past weekend was no exception. We appreciate this continued support from you and it reinforces our belief that we have an excellent school filled with motivated students, dedicated teachers, and parents who believe in the value of a solid educational foundation.

I was quite pleased to hear from one family on Saturday who had been recommended by a current family for Mentor’s Intermediate Division for next year. The family has been in a French immersion programme in the public system for a few years and is finding that the quality of education has diminished over that time and that the top students in the class are not being challenged at all in their studies. The parents told me that the recommendation came because of our challenging academic standards in general but in particular because we have a highly-regarded French programme. When you think about it, students who start in our junior kindergarten classes will have five years of French instruction before their cohorts in the public system begin French language instruction (usually in Grade 4) so it makes sense that Mentor is a recommended destination for those in immersion programmes who want to keep up their French skills.

I continue to be grateful to my parents for encouraging me to keep studying French through high school. I knew when I was in Grade 6 that I wanted to be a teacher and my mom (a teacher herself) told me that French would make the difference in my career. Like our Mentor students, I had a great teacher who motivated me to even get a minor in that subject in university! (footnote: having French did help me get my teaching job here but for what I know NOW about French, I would probably have trouble being a student in Grade 4 at Mentor, let alone teach it!)

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College/TEAM School