Category Archives: Alumni

University-Minded & University-Bound

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Last night, our Grade 12 students and parents (along with some Grade 10 and 11 families) got the exclusive opportunity to meet with over 40 Canadian colleges and universities at our annual University Fair. The Grade 12 students were a mixture of excitement and terror … excited about all of the options open to them but scared that they will make the wrong decision. I even overheard one student say that she was even torn about last night. “Should I be here finding out the courses and marks I need or should I have stayed at home to study in order to get the mark in the course I need?”

Having graduated from Goderich DCI (a small rural-ish high school), I did not experience any of these things. If there was a university fair somewhere, I didn’t hear about it and only a handful of universities held information sessions at our school. I never worried too much about my marks (to my mother’s chagrin) and neither have I ever questioned my decision to accept Wilfrid Laurier University’s offer over Western and Waterloo.

If this year’s Grade 12s could only come to Commencement tonight and speak with the Class of 2015, they would get re-assurance from these post-secondary “veterans” (they have been away for 5 whole weeks after all!) that everything will work out just fine. They would hear that being a TSS/Mentor grad does not mean that you are immune from all the distractions of university but that when you move your stuff into residence, you will also be bringing with you a unique skill set that allows you to balance the fun part of post-secondary life with the academic side. In other words, you have the academic background and work ethic from your years here that will allow you to be just as involved in extra-curricular life as you were in your high school years!

Have a wonderful long weekend, everyone!

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College / TEAM School

Speech Night, Study Skills Pay Off

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This is Speech Night season for the elementary students at our schools and for pure pent-up energy and excitement, you cannot match a homeroom of our students in those anxious moments just before the start of the presentations.

For those of you who joined the school later in your child’s schooling, you might not know that Speech Night begins in kindergarten when the students work as a group to sing songs and recite poems for their parents in the gym. When the students start their “all-by-themselves” speeches in Grade 1, the process of researching, writing, memorizing and presenting a speech is consistent for the rest of their days with us. Variables include the length of the speech (increases as the student progresses), the topic (might be theme-related such as The Medieval Era or a topic of the student’s choice) and the quantity and type of research materials used. They get so good at it by the time they are in Grade 12, they actually start to pretend to not even like Speech Night anymore!

Like all of the skills our students gain, however, it is at the post-secondary level when the Mentor experience really pays off. I know that I say this all the time but it is true AND we get messages like this from Mentor and TSS students all the time. So if you do not believe me, please consider this message that was sent this week to Executive Director Mr. Philbrook from one of his HS cricket team players who is now at Queen’s University in Kingston:

I hope everything is going well at Mentor! It feels so weird to be an alumni now! But on a side note, I wanted to tell you that being at Mentor these past 5 years has really made a positive impact on my university career thus far. I don’t think any of us really realize it until we get here, but Mentor played a huge role in helping us do well. I handle the workload much better than a lot of my peers, largely because the enormous amount of work we have here isn’t as drastic a difference from what we had at Mentor, compared to other schools. And it felt so good to walk into my midterms in December, and see all those desks lined up in rows in the gym, and NOT freak out (it’s old hat at this point!), while so many other kids weren’t used to it. So I just wanted to let you know. Mentor played a huge role in my ability to handle university, and even though I never tucked my shirt in or cleaned my paint-smeared tie and kilt, I absolutely appreciate the education I received there. So thanks a bunch sir!

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College/TEAM School

SK: Where Do They Go From Here?

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I walked past the senior kindergarten classes and their “100 Day” celebrations this week. It doesn’t take a whole lot to get 5-year-olds excited in the first place but celebrating the 100th day of school is a really big event. And while it seems like just a fun day for the students, skills like counting to 100, learning to read and learning to play co-operatively are the building blocks of the rest of a student’s career in education and beyond.

A few minutes after walking past the celebrations, I checked in on Facebook and the school’s alumni page. As I scrolled through the names, I was able to remember many of those same kids (some in their 30s now) when they were in kindergarten and I thought it would be interesting to see what the members in the group are doing now. The following is not a scientific study…I simply went to the first 10 names on the list that had an employment status and came up with the following:

Registered Nurse at Credit Valley Hospital
Relationship Manager at TD Bank
Student at University of Zagreb School of Medicine
Student at University of Alberta School of Dentistry
First Responder at Newfoundland Ambulance Service
Staff Accountant at Walsh and Company
Partner at Fresca Films
Account Manager at Royal Bank of Canada
Software Developer at Soho VFX
Music Teacher at Mentor College (yes, this is Mr. Hoare…he is not an alumnus of the school, but he is in the group!)

The list is actually pretty indicative of what our graduates end up doing in post-secondary studies. The percentages change from year to year but the three most popular academic streams are science (with a tendency towards health sciences), business and the arts.

If you have a senior kindergarten student (or any other age), can you see your child in one or more of those 10 positions listed above?

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College/TEAM School

A Thankful Community

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A thank-you card was delivered to the school last Friday.

Now cards of appreciation and thanks are not unusual at our school. Teachers receive them routinely from parents and regularly send them out to students (and they are usually mailed to the house so you as parents can see how proud we are of your kids!). Principals, students and teachers are both givers and receivers of notes of appreciation and Director Mr. Macdonald is an active part of this wonderful community of thanks as well.

This thank-you card was a bit more unusual, though. First of all, the card was addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Philbrook and it was written in appreciation of their vision of the school (over 30 years ago) and for how they put all the pieces in place to make it work so well. Specific teachers, coaches, principals and classmates were not as important to the author as the comfort level that the family felt in coming to the school every day for 10 years. Even more unusual was the fact that the card was written by a student who has not only graduated from high school, but is now finishing up a second university degree.

During our presentations for prospective families, we always tell them that they need to feel that perfect “fit” for their child in our school. We are a great fit for most families and the fact that parents, students and alumni are recommending us to most of the families who come to us means that you are getting that same feeling about the school as our alumnus did.

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College / TEAM School

“People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.”

– Maya Angelou

Focusing On The First Four Years After High School

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Starting next Tuesday, the Class of 2015 and 2016 will start on their journey of post-secondary education as they attend our very own University Fair in the gym. 25 schools will be onsite to distribute information and to answer questions from our Mentor students and parents from 6:00 to 7:00 and to then host three breakout sessions in classrooms from 7:00 to 9:00. Later in the month, our Grade 11 and 12 TSS students will attend the Ontario College Information Fair to start the process of finding that perfect educational “fit” for college (that same “fit” they found for their secondary school years).

Tonight, however, we will be welcoming back the high school Class of 2014 for their Commencement ceremony. This year’s graduates have spread themselves out over Ontario (at 20 different schools), Canada (in half the provinces of the country) and the globe (in the US, China and England just to name a few countries).

There are 172 members of the Class of 2014 – the largest graduating class in the history of our school. This may not seem like a huge number, but consider this: when you look at the portraits outside of the school office, you need to get to the 7th year of our high school’s existence to find the 172nd graduate!

The interests of the Class of 2014 vary from Arts to Architecture, Biology to Business and Commerce to Computer Science. They are studying unique programmes like Technoculture and Urban Planning. They are our future doctors, lawyers, engineers, police officers, teachers and politicians and even though they may have stopped listening to their parents about 5 minutes into Frosh Week, we had all better be nice to them. They are the ones who will be deciding what happens to our pension plans!

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College / TEAM School