Author Archives: Mentor College / TEAM School

Unknown's avatar

About Mentor College / TEAM School

Tutorial and Educational Assistance in Mississauga, or TEAM School, was established in 1981 to strengthen the learning skills of students. Located in the heart of Mississauga, TEAM School is a non-denominational private school recognized by the Ontario Ministry of Education. Founded in 1982, Mentor College educates children from junior kindergarten through to the university entrance level. Children at Mentor College are grouped by age and experience in three levels of study: Untitled-1primary, intermediate, and high school. These groupings follow the curriculum set out by the Ontario Ministry of Education for all schools in the province.

Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow!

Leave a reply

I know there are mixed reactions when the first snow hits the ground each winter. The skiers love it and start the countdown to when then can hit the slopes. New Canadians are curiously excited about the prospect (and usually don’t mind the snow as much as the cold) and others just want it to be spring again. Having grown up in a snowbelt area, I prefer the snow to come in late November, to stay until mid-February and be all melted by March Break. I don’t like it when the snow comes, then melts, then comes back…I am not a fan of slush!

Here at our schools, our routine changes slightly. On snowy mornings, the parking lots and sidewalks get plowed, shovelled and salted. The teachers on yard duty pack some extra layers before they leave for work and we encourage everyone to leave earlier to account for the slower traffic. And as longtime Mentor/TEAM families will attest, we very rarely declare a “snow day” for the school.

I know the Weather Network and CP24 love snow days and they are even more eager than the students to hand out bus cancellation and school closure information. This eagerness means that they will report without checking the source and a few years back, an enterprising high school student called CP24 to tell them our buses were cancelled. The station reported it and it of course caused a lot of confusion at the school (sidenote: the student made the mistake of taking a photo of the TV screen and putting it on Facebook so most of the HS knew who it was!). Since then, we remind families several times a year that we only report bus cancellations and/or school closures through our own media. If you are receiving this email, you will be the first to hear bus cancellation or school closure information. The “Snow Day” page on our websites will have the information and we will also post this on our Facebook page. So as the holiday song says: “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow”.

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College / TEAM School

Process Or Product?

Leave a reply

I imagine that every one of us can remember from our very earliest years in school the following statement from a math teacher:

“The answer is important but you also need need to show your work.”

As a student, I felt the reasoning behind “showing your work” was so I could still get partial marks if I had the wrong answer due to a computation error. I am sure that we have students at our schools who feel the same way but there are probably just as many who have said “I got the right answer; that should be all that matters”.

As a preparatory school for post-secondary education, we want to ensure that our students are ready for what lies ahead so the Mentor HS mathematics department head Mr. Sulpizi asked his alma mater (University of Toronto) what they expected of a first-year mathematics student. The associate chair of the department wrote back and said that “entry-level students are often under the misconception that getting the correct answer to a problem is quite enough, while proper justification of the answer is undervalued.” He went on to explain that university math students will find that the “proper presentation of mathematical arguments is important” and that for math majors, this “fluency in mathematical language is crucial”. In other words, the other 5000 first-year math students at U of T (this is the associate chair’s figure!) are just as capable of finding the correct answer but understanding the theory behind it what sets students apart from each other.

So if your child is learning how to add two-digit numbers, starting long division, being introduced to BEDMAS or plotting advanced functions, your school is emphasizing that how they get to the answer is just as important as the result itself. It is critical because that is what the next level of education is recommending. After that, I wonder if the theory relates to the practical or “real world”. Hit “reply” and let me know what you find in your line of work. Is the process as important or more important than the final answer or everything based on results?

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College / TEAM School

Semis Were Fun In ’81…And Still Are

Leave a reply

Tomorrow is the Semi-Formal Dinner and Dance (or “semi”) for our high school students and with my Grade 9 daughter attending for the first time, it reminds me of my first semi-formal dance back in Goderich in 1981…

Like our semi, the GDCI dance was a very popular ticket and it seemed like I stood forever in the ticket line one lunch hour. I decided to splurge and buy a nice suit (light blue, 3 piece with a reversible vest) but because everyone else was doing the same thing, I had to stand in the suit line. I had (of course) purchased a lovely corsage for my date and when I went to pick it up at Dennome’s Flower Shop, all the other boys in school were there already and I had to wait in the corsage line. And despite the fact that I had made dinner a reservation at Robindale’s, we had to wait for about 30 minutes in the restaurant line. We finished dinner and rushed to the dance but Mr. Rittinger and Mr. Murdie were letting everyone in one-by-one so we stood in the entrance line. Finally, we were inside at the dance and while I was summoning up my nerve to ask her to dance, my date suggested that a refreshment would be nice. I said “OK” but I panicked that it would take forever to get to the punch bowl and that someone on the football team (I was a volleyball player) might come along and ask her to dance while I was gone, but…fortunately, there was no punch line.

We don’t expect to see any light blue, 3-piece, reversible vest suits at the semi this Friday but this is a major event for our high school students (some say it is more anticipated than final examinations!). It is organized by the high school student council, and high school teachers volunteer to chaperone. And yes…..there will be lots of dancing, but it remains to be seen if the last dance will be Stairway to Heaven, like it was in ’81.

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College / TEAM School

Makin’ Speech Night Memories

Leave a reply

With the Mentor high school students completing the first of our school’s 4 Speech Nights last night, I put a message on my alumni Facebook page asking if they remembered a specific speech now that they have been away from this school for a while.

15 years later, Gordie remembers his “magnum opus” on “The Eel” in his Grade 2 class. Michael, who just finished his Master’s remembers his excitement in his Grade 3 TEAM class that he got the exciting pioneer theme topic of “threshing”. Emma is Mom to a 2-year-old now but can name the Medieval roles/characters from almost her entire Grade 4 class. Even high school speeches are memorable; Jenny still thinks about Grade 9 classmate Jeff’s speech on the paper clip!

The most interesting post was from Geoff, who remembers the positive reaction from Grade 13 English teacher Mr. Gough after his speech “Why I Should Rule the World”. Geoff is now a father of two and an English teacher himself so perhaps we will need to wait for the next generation of world domination from a Grade 9 class.

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College / TEAM School

We Are Open This Weekend!

Leave a reply

Tonight is Hallowe’en and depending on the age of your kids, it can be anything from the most exciting night of the year to just another evening.

The thing that most of us have in common is that we have kids come to our door, we open it, they ask for something and we provide it to them. This Saturday, your school will be repeating this process as we hold our first Open House of the year when we open our doors to prospective students and families to tell them about what we can provide. Like Hallowe’en can be, it is a very exciting day for us as we are anxious to show others what you already know…that we have great students, teachers, programming, and facilities.

At the Primary Campus, families can tour the school, speak with teachers in their classrooms and take part in a presentation with the administrators in the gym. If they think the school would be a good fit for their child(ren), we invite them to come for an assessment early in 2014. At the Main Campus, families take a tour of the school with one of our ambassadors to get a student perspective on life at Mentor and then meet the administrative staff during an informal presentation in O’Brien Hall. Interested students are encouraged to return for the first entrance assessment of the year (Saturday, January 11).

The process is much the same at TEAM School (tour, presentation, Q&A opportunities) but because of the individualized academic programming we offer, the admissions process can also be individualized. If there is space in a grade, we are sometimes able to have a student come for a “visiting day” soon after the Open House and even start at our school shortly after that. The most amazing thing to me about the process is, despite the stress that usually accompanies moving to a different school, it is quite often the student who begs Mom or Dad to let them come to this “new school”.

If you have any family, friends or colleagues who are considering our schools, please share this update with them and tell them to let us know who sent them!

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College / TEAM School