Middle School - No middle ground

After twenty years of teaching in six different schools, I have worked with thousands of students of various ages, in various settings, and have always hoped that I'm making a positive impact in these young peoples' lives. Strathcona-Tweedsmuir School (STS) is the first school where I regularly see tangible evidence of this positive impact because it is the first place I've taught where it is the norm for student-teacher relationships to extend beyond the student's Grade 12 year; and where it is the norm for teachers and students to share life experiences. 

Earlier this month seven STS students, from Elementary and Middle School, participated in the city-wide Calgary Youth Science Fair (CYSF), held at the University of Calgary Olympic Oval on April 5 and 6. This annual competition encourages and promotes ongoing interest for scientific principles and methods. 

Technology-integrated learning at Strathcona-Tweedsmuir (STS) focuses on the 5 C's: collaboration, communication, critical thinking and computational thinking. The STS curriculum teaches students to be digitally-literate through the introduction of the fifth 'C', computational thinking. STS recognizes that proper technology integration and education is about the design of the learning experiences that not only help students strengthen their digital abilities, but to also help students think critically about what tool best enables their learning in different situations. 

This past week we continued the work of two STS alumni, Scott Wilson ’15 and Myles Chase ’15, who created Open Arms to promote mental health awareness

It is a commonly known fact that many people fear public speaking more than death, but you will not hear STS students sharing this sentiment, due to the culture of public speaking that has evolved over our long history. 

Senior debate students Chelli Shapiro ’19 and Zaki Lakhani ’20 are one of four Canadian teams traveling to the U.K. to participate in the Oxford Finals Day at the Oxford Union.

On Saturday, February 2, STS hosted 330 people for the Provincial Speech Tournament. This final tournament of the year qualifies students for both the junior and senior national speech tournaments. For the first time this year, Alberta is able to send 14 representatives to the National Tournament and we are pleased to announce that 9 of the 14 students attending will be from STS and in the senior division, 4 of the 7 students representing Alberta are from Strathcona-Tweedsmuir!

STS hosted over 250 young basketball players and their coaches from independent schools across Canada. STS is the ONLY Canadian Accredited Independent School(CAIS) to host and billet these many athletes! It is a true testament to the strength of our community when we have well over 60 families open their homes to host these 11 and 12-year-old boys visiting our school. Almost one-third of our entire school faculty and staff were directly involved in this fabulous event.

Throughout Grade 10, students work on a personal project as the capstone for their International Baccalaureate (IB) Middle Years Programme (MYP). Personal projects focus on a passion that revolves around a challenge that is motivating and interesting to the individual student. Each year, students produce unique projects that are completed during a six-month independent research process with the ultimate goal being that students appreciate the process of learning, create a project that meets their learning style, and produce a product or outcome they can take pride in.

In support of this season's winter giving campaign, STS collected goods for Stephen's Backpacks Society. An initiative that began 10 years ago in Calgary, Stephen's Backpack offers hope in a Christmas backpack gift for children in need.

On December 6, Strathcona-Tweedsmuir School hosted Paul Davis, nationally recognized expert on social media and online safety.

On Friday, two Middle School teams: Lakhshan Amin’22 and Shaheena Shajani ’22 and Lucy Coleman ’22 and Emma Mason ’22 competed at the Western Canada High School Debate tournament.

Daring greatly and playing as a team, the Junior A Boys gave it their all this weekend as they played some excellent volleyball at Holy Cross Collegiate in Strathmore, representing the South Central Zone.