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Brentwood College
Spring Report, March 2003 from Andrea Pennells, Head of School |
This Week at www.brentwood.bc.ca
The Fraser Institute of British Columbia - Academic League
Table
At the final assembly of the term, I made the following statement, in response to Brentwood’s #1 academic ranking in B.C. by the Fraser Institute Report: Yesterday, many of you saw a TV reporter on campus. Last night, D’arcy Danychuk, Laura McCarthy, Brendan Hodge and a supporting cast which included many of you appeared as the lead story on V I News on Channel 12. Brentwood was being featured as the co-ranking #1 academic school out of 279 independent and public schools in British Columbia, according to the Fraser Institute League Table for the 2001-2002 school year. We shared the #1 spotlight with eight other schools, including St. George’s and Crofton House in Vancouver, and St. Michael’s and St. Margaret’s in Victoria. I
want to congratulate The Class of 2002, all of you here who wrote B.C.
Provincial exams last year, and all our dedicated academic faculty for
this success. I want you to
know, however, that as proud as we are of our outstanding academic reputation,
we do not measure the effectiveness of our
school by the Fraser League Table.
In compiling their results, the Fraser Institute uses a very
narrow statistical snapshot, measuring only performance in the B.C.
Provincial exams – not Advanced Placement, not external math, writing
and science competitions, not university entrance scholarships, all
of which are also external measures of Brentwood’s high academic standards.
Of more concern, however, is that the Fraser
Institute takes no account whatsoever of student participation, effort
and achievement in athletics, the arts, or community service. At Brentwood, we want you all to reach your
individual potential academically.
But our school is about so much more – it
is about learning how to get along and live with people from different
countries, with different personalities, interests, ages, skin colour,
religion, even body type. It
is about discovering who you are as an individual, what strengths and
passion make you unique. It
is about giving back to the community and making a difference in the
lives of others, as you did this term with Lauren Selman’s heartwarming
letter writing campaign to the children in Vietnam.
So, as I said to all the reporters who called me yesterday, Brentwood
is not an exam factory. Academics are central here, but supported by
our co-curricular programmes in athletics and the arts, with a deliberate
emphasis on leadership through service to others, in a community where,
I hope, you will make lifelong friends, learn about life, and have
fun. I
think it is significant that the two #1 ranked schools in B.C. and Alberta
share the same view on the Fraser Reports. At
Brentwood, for our part, our
educational philosophy will continue to embrace athletics, the arts,
and the personal and social development of every student, not as optional
extras, but as vital co-curricular programmes and the essence of the
boarding school experience. Any narrowly defined statistical league table
cannot measure such opportunities for growth and personal development.
However “successful” our Fraser Institute ranking may be, we
will remain committed to developing the individual potential of every
student through our tri-partite programme and our ethos as a school
community. What do the Brentwood marks on the March student reports measure?
In
keeping with the theme of meaningful statistics, I think it will be
helpful to explain what the report marks measure this term. In March, we make a distinction between the junior and senior school.
In Grades 8 and 9, the March marks reflect only the second term’s work. In
Grades 10, 11 and 12, the marks shown are cumulative to date (with the
exception of Science 10 where term marks are given in physics, chemistry
and biology). Cumulative standings
are designed to help students in Grades
10 and 11 determine their relative strengths before they start the
process next term of making decisions about their elective courses for
next year. At the end of June, Mr. Burrows and Mr. Pennells
will be in touch with you about September’s final course selection. In
Grade 12, cumulative marks
give our graduates an idea of where they stand in preparation for the
critical work of their final term.
Marks already submitted to universities reflect teachers’ projections
of each Grade 12’s final standing.
These marks are updated as requested by each university, and
all universities are sent final transcript marks in July for all student
applicants, which include B.C. provincial examination results.
Thus, it is vital for all Grade 12s to maintain their strong
academic focus until they put their pens down after their last provincial
exam at the end of June, in order to secure the strongest possible
academic transcript, not only for next year, but also for all future
post-secondary applications. In
that endeavour, I wish all our graduates every success. Student success in the B.C. provincial exams in January 2003
Although most B.C. provincial exams are written by Brentwood students in June, in January, thirty-four AP Biology students wrote their Biology 12 final, averaging 89%, a remarkable 24% above the provincial average. Fifty-eight Grade 12s challenged the English Literature 12 paper, scoring an average of 83%, 9% above the provincial mean, and seventeen linguists from Grades 9-12 tackled the French 12 paper, scoring an average of 87%, 12% above the province. We congratulate all Brentwood’s early exam candidates and their teachers for these outstanding results. Arts
and Athletics In
the arts, our concert band and jazz ensemble drew favourable adjudications
at the Calgary Festival, as did our dancers and musicians at the Cowichan
Festival of the Arts. Laura McCarthy, Adam Schneider, Brendan Hodge
and Brandon Diana led a strong supporting cast in My
Fair Lady, a truly memorable production to end the run of Brentwood
musicals in the auditorium anticipating the opening in September of
the T.Gil Bunch Centre for the Performing Arts.
Our senior actors will present two plays in the auditorium on
April 10 to 12, when you will also be able to view the latest show by
our prolifically talented visual artists in the W.T. Ross Academic Centre.
In sports, our basketball teams again competed hard against much larger schools. Despite being hit by the dreaded flu, our squash team were the I.S.A. silver medallists. In February, after their exciting tour to Ontario, our ice hockey club again hosted the Ross Cup Tournament at the local arena with fifteen teams invited from across B.C.. Our rowers have already begun competing, with promising results. In Outdoor Pursuits, students have been kayaking, climbing and snow shoeing, with seventeen registered for the Duke of Edinburgh award programme. Next term, we look forward to hard fought competition on the fields, in the gym, on the tennis courts and on the water. Preparations are well underway for the annual Brentwood Regatta which runs from April 25-27. I hope you can join us for this very special weekend. Campus Life
Thanks to the continuing leadership of the Grad Class and the Student Activities Committee, sponsored by John Garvey, John Allpress and Clayton Johnston, the residential life of the campus continues to buzz with activity, including theme dances, weekend movies, Sunday fun sports, and the ever popular staff student challenge matches. John Allpress organized Sunday skiing almost every weekend, a School Ski Day in February, and another successful mid-term ski trip to Silver Star in the Okanagan. Mindful of the pitfalls of a toxic culture, however, SPARC, our student peer counselling group, organized a thought provoking Drug Awareness Day for the Grade 10 class, including moving personal accounts of the impact of addiction on families. My thanks go to all the students who worked tremendously hard to make the day meaningful and effective, and to their staff sponsors, Andrea Felix and Mark Sprungmann, and our Health Centre team for their helpful input. Meanwhile, Clayton Johnston and Andrea Felix, our new Health and Wellness Counsellor, continue to develop our residential life curriculum to help guide all students in making sound personal and social decisions. Communication and home/school partnership
Since September, we have been seeking ways to improve our communication with you as parents, and your communication with your son/daughter. I have allocated extra time and resources to our IT Department to develop programmes to assist this aim. In discussions with the Student Executive Committee who represent student views on various issues to me in our weekly meetings, the faculty, the administration, and a wide range of parents, we have decided to implement the changes outlined overleaf, some as of next September, and seek your active help in making them work for all concerned.
Internet access in dorms Following
extensive deliberation on all points of view, as of next September,
we will connect any student’s personal computer in his/her dorm to the
internet for use at specified times only, excluding
prep and after lights out. A
student will be connected only
after we have received signed parental permission on a form we will
include in our Opening of Year package, and will lose his/her internet
privilege for any violation of the terms of the agreement stated on
that form. Surfwatch will screen
out harmful sites, and student use of the internet will be monitored.
To facilitate communication for our international families especially,
our IT Department will try to develop our own Instant Messaging System
by September. Commercial ISM’s, unfortunately, make our educational
network much too vulnerable to viruses and overload, because of the
potential to download huge files and programmes from the internet. Emailing
of student reports and correspondence In
our Opening of Year package, we will be asking all parents to supply
personal email addresses. To
expedite communication between school and home, as of September, student
reports and school correspondence will be emailed.
Archive copies of student reports will still be mailed, as will
commendation and recognition cards, “permanent” correspondence and the
Brentonian magazine. Any family who would prefer not to be contacted
by email may, of course, choose only conventional mail service. Cell
phones Our current unwritten rule discourages student use of cell phones. Given our continuing difficulty, however, in managing the number of calls to our switchboard at peak periods when students are free of school commitments, we will now encourage the use of cell phones for communication with family members, especially parents, while students are at school and as they are travelling to and from leave. Students may not use cell phones in class time, athletics, arts, evening prep, on school buses, in the dining room, or in any public spaces on campus, nor may they use them to talk to one another at school. Any students abusing this cell phone privilege will have their phones confiscated. As parents, your help in supporting these necessary restrictions will make the critical difference to the viability of individual cell phone use, as will keeping a watching brief on your child’s cell phone bill. Of course, parents may still contact their children through our switchboard, and having a cell phone is not a requirement! Travel
Dress: smart casual, with the emphasis on smart Finally,
we seek your help in guiding the choices of your son/daughter travelling
to and from leave and major breaks.
We have described smart casual to the students as clothing which
is comfortable, but “classy”, without being tight, revealing, baggy
or extreme in fashion or style. Good judgement, we hope, will prevail, to avoid
the need for detailed regulation of travel dress. Incidentally, girls may wear only the black dress pants supplied in our
school store as an alternative to the kilt to classes; the boys’
black pant option is as supplied by Moores
or their equivalent. Many thanks
for your help in supporting our dress code. Spring Break is always a time to take stock, recharge, establish goals for the final term, and focus one’s energies on the challenge of achieving one’s personal best by the end of the school year. With these thoughts in mind, may I wish all our students a refreshing and relaxing holiday with family and friends, and every possible success next term.
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