I had the pleasure of attending the Grade 8 to 9 Orientation Night at TEAM/TSS last Thursday night and was even given the opportunity to tell a few stories about TSS students and teachers. I am not at TEAM School as much as I would like so the stories were from my perspective as a principal that spends most of his day at the Main Campus.
TEAM Secondary School really is the best of both worlds. For students who thrive in small class settings and are leaning towards a college education, the academic environment we provide is a perfect fit for them. Other private schools like TSS exist but not only do we believe that our academic programme is more challenging, we know that none of them are able to provide all of the extra-curricular opportunities that the Mentor/TSS student body combined can. High schools with even twice as many students as TSS rarely have sports teams, specialty clubs, cool trips, and arts programmes and when you think about it, those are things as parents you probably remember most about your high school years. Why is it that I can tell lots of stories about experiences and skills learned from Mr. Murdoch my Grade 10 basketball coach but none about Mr. Murdoch (same guy!) my Grade 10 business teacher?
In my youth (and in my town), there were no real high school choices. There wasn’t a Catholic secondary school anywhere nearby and I had only even heard of one private school (Alma College in St. Thomas). There weren’t acronyms like IB, AP and SHSM being advertised by the Board to entice me to a specific school; it was Goderich DCI or nothing. It worked for me but it was not suited for everyone. Our Grade 8 students (both at TEAM and Mentor) have already found a good “fit” for an academic programme so the transition to high school (while still an adjustment) is not that daunting and actually really exciting.
If you missed last week’s orientation nights at Mentor or TEAM, please contact the school and we would be glad to inform you about the Ontario secondary school system and tell you about TSS/Mentor’s place within it.
Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College / TEAM School
“All the Leaves Are Brown and the Sky is Grey”
It was pointed out to me on Wednesday night that, with my youngest child in Grade 12, I was attending my final Speech Night as a parent (4 years with the eldest, 8 years with both kids and 4 years with the youngest for a total of 16 years!). I told my daughter afterwards that I thought it was her best one of the lot and her response was “You don’t remember my ‘Opossum’ speech in Grade 3, do you?” She inherited her mother’s looks and intelligence but definitely has her father’s wit!
There is an old Monty Python skit called “The Four Yorkshiremen” and during high school, a friend and I had it memorized line for line. For those who haven’t heard it, the members of the comedy troupe are sitting in a lounge with glasses of champagne and expensive cigars talking about how “we had it rough when we were young”. Following the Paul Davis seminar on Tuesday evening and learning about all the challenges that parents and their children face regarding online safety, I mused with a similarly-aged (eg: old) colleague about whether or not life was easier when we were kids.
We are really looking forward to tomorrow with the three presentations from social media expert Paul Davis. Our Grades 5/6 students and our Grades 7/8 students will each receive an age-appropriate presentation about both the wonders and the pitfalls of social media. I have not seen a Paul Davis presentation before but I imagine the students go into the auditorium thinking they know everything there is to know about social media and come out realizing (but perhaps not admitting) that there was lots they did not know (and that they didn’t think anyone over the age of 21 knew more than they did on the topic!).
The Mentor/TEAM Blog 