As the last of the Advanced Placement (AP) students write their examinations this week, I thought it would be helpful to help those who are not familiar with the AP programme to get some insight.

An AP course is for selected students who show the academic potential and a subject-specific interest that would allow them to learn at a higher level than secondary school. Students study the course material with a Mentor faculty member throughout the year and in May, a worldwide, common examination is administered by the US College Board (the same people who run the SATs). Students who earn a 4.0 or 5.0 on the test can use the results to earn a first-year university credit in that subject. Our students take advantage of this in two ways; they can move on to some second year courses in their major right away once they get to university OR they use their preview of the first year course material to gain an advantage over the rest of their first-year university classmates…especially if they are competing for a spot in a very competitive programme like medicine or engineering.

A very high percentage of our students get that 4.0 or 5.0 (we are awaiting the results of the 2014 tests) but it is interesting to follow the university paths of those students. In just the 2012 AP classes alone, we have the story of Michael, who is spending his summer in the department of neuroscience at the University of Toronto doing research with a lead professor. From that same year is Jennifer, who received an NSERC USRA (which is the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Undergraduate Student Research Award) based on grade point average and subject interest. She has a 16-week grant to work with a McMaster University professor of physics and astronomy looking at membrane and protein dynamics through x-ray diffraction. Not to be outdone, Andrew is “living the dream” as far as the stereotypical university male goes. He is spending his summer in Sweden studying the influence of hop addition techniques on flavour compounds in beer. And he is getting paid, too!

We sometimes think as parents that our kids’ academic life events are a long way off (moving to the Main Campus, Grade 8 graduation, a high school prom) and in this case, we have 2nd-year students working on research projects that we believe are usually reserved for master’s and doctoral students. Because of the head start our students gain here, the future is not as far off as parents of our graduates think!

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College / TEAM School

Parents will no doubt remember at some point in their educational careers asking this question of their teacher “When am I ever going to use this in my life?”. For me, I remember asking this when I couldn’t find the septa of my dissected earthworm during Grade 10 science, a class in which I found little motivation to learn. My decidedly uninspirational teacher did not appreciate the question, nor my witty remark that the only person who needs to find a septa was Queen Elizabeth. Like now, I had to explain to her that Queen Elizabeth has a sceptre and that she is British and her accent would make the word sceptre sound like septa (and now that I read this, it might not have been that funny back then, either).

What I do know is that the skills learned during the upcoming Speech Nights, the HS DECA competition and the Grade 7/8 Science Fairs cannot be questioned. Persons who cannot communicate effectively in both written and oral form will be restricted in their ability to become leaders in their chosen careers whether that be politics, business, law, engineering or even stay-at-home-parent. Even those who find making public presentations daunting will appreciate the experience in the long run. The movie “The King’s Speech” showed this; the King was terrified at the prospect of public speaking. He was a leader by birthright, of course, and did not achieve greatness because of his presentation skills but only after he gave his famous “we are at war” speech did he truly inspire a nation.

I doubt that Tiffany’s “All About Me” Grade 1 speech, Sachin and Steven’s Q and A about “Creating Voltage Using Fruits” with the Grade 7/8 science fair judges or Josephine and Aliya’s DECA presentation on “Buying and Merchandising” will ever inspire a nation, but I do know that they will leave our school with an ability to communicate that their peers will envy.

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College/TEAM School

Since the high school programmes existed at Mentor and TSS, we have employed a “mid-year evaluation” (you can call them examinations if you want, but the Ministry of Education says they aren’t). The format of this “major test” (the Ministry says we call them this) varies in each of the programmes and on a course-by-course basis but for the most part, TSS and Mentor high school have used a mid-year evaluation schedule that saw the students write one evaluation per day for 8 days. There are pros and cons to every system, of course, and after an extensive review, TSS chose to maintain their system and the Mentor programme decided to try something new.

The Mentor high school students’ new mid-year evaluation schedule had a maximum of 2 tests each day for 4 days. The main intent of the new schedule was to maximize teaching days and the main concern of a more stressful 4-day workload was alleviated by building some relaxation into the test situation (time at the beginning and end of each test to do some quiet review or just “chill” was something borrowed from the TSS system).

In both the TSS and Mentor programmes, our goal is to give our students the best chance to display their accumulated knowledge AND preparing them for their post-secondary studies. In the same vein, we have formal mid-year evaluations/tests/examinations (the Ministry doesn’t have any vocabulary rules under Grade 9!) for our younger students to prepare them for high school. These evaluations have undergone similar tweaking over the years and with every change, we think it is positive.

What do you think? Mentor Grade 10 to 12 students and parents would be the best ones to comment on the most recent change, but we would love to hear from everyone on this so please hit “reply” if you have any comments.

Chris Starkey
Administrative Principal
Mentor College & TEAM School