Inside King's-Edgehill School

As a fun and different approach to logarithms and their connections with exponents during distance learning, our class had an option of using their creative side as a final assessment.  I decided to get a little creative and wrote a song about the ten major concepts in the unit.  It is written to the tune of “Jack and Diane” by John Mellencamp, and I titled it   “A little Ditty about Exponents and Logs”.  For Part 1 of the final assessment, students listened to the song and wrote about the ten key concepts expressed.  This was excellent insight into whether the students recognized and grasped each of the concepts.

Topics: Academics at KES, Arts At KES

In lieu of a proper, in-person farewell, the coaching staff of the Senior Boys' Rugby team would like to extend our congratulations, gratitude, and good luck to the graduates of the 1st XV with a presentation, the link to which can be found here. 

Topics: Athletics At KES, Athletes at KES

Rowan Francis, one of our Grade 6 students from Canning, Nova Scotia, has quite an exciting summer planned.  In a recent news release, it was announced that Rowan and 51 other students from across Canada have been chosen to take part in the Canadian Space Agency’s Junior Astronaut Camp. The Junior Astronauts initiative was first announced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in February 2019. To quote the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, “…The Junior Astronaut Camp will inspire and empower the next generation of scientists, engineers and astronauts – and encourage them to consider all the opportunities offered in space exploration and STEM careers.” Rowan will be one of only seven Grade 6 students to take part in the national camp. 

Topics: About King's-Edgehill School, Academics at KES

In a year where finding opportunities to volunteer was very challenging, the students in the Junior School rose to that challenge and earned   almost 1200  hours of community service as a group.  These students made cards for seniors, participated in School and community garbage pick-ups, performed peer tutoring, served in chapel, chopped wood, mowed neighbourhood lawns, and took on numerous other small tasks to make this happen.  It is clear that most of our students are not “in it for the pin”; most of them kept volunteering long after they had secured their awards, simply because they loved what they were doing. 

 

For our Grade 9 students in the Duke of Edinburgh Award Programme, I am impressed with the number who managed to get their Bronze Level Award completed this year!  We got two day-hikes completed early in the year, but our required overnight trip was booked, postponed, rescheduled several times, and ultimately cancelled.  To compensate for these COVID-related difficulties worldwide, the Duke of Edinburgh organization set up a virtual programme, requiring students to watch videos of other people taking hikes, then physically preparing, cooking and eating a meal together, and then working in small groups to do research projects/PowerPoint presentation about COVID-19.  Compared to a regular award year, this easily added between 20 and 30 hours of time to get the award requirements completed; however, quite a number of our students persevered and have received their awards.  Congratulations to the following students who have successfully completed the Bronze Level!

Topics: Cadets

 

Topics: About King's-Edgehill School, KES Alumni

I am suspicious of seeing cell phones in my classroom, but I don't always see them when they're being used because kids are crafty. In this case, recently I received an email from   Hannah Koopernaes (Grade 11)  with an audio attachment. After her IB music class finished uploading the required material for their course assessment, the group turned to having some fun learning a couple of tunes for what was then expected to be a 'live' Arts Gala, as  the "house band". In doing so, we began working on a few different songs, one of which features the oboe. Okay... we have one of those in our collection, played by Mitchell Larkin (Grade 11). So, as the group attempted to play the piece, during the second run-through of the song, Hannah had the idea to record it on her cell phone so that she could have it to practice with after class. She sent it to me a couple of weeks ago when schools went into lockdown, just out of interest’s sake. This recording is raw, but delightfully transparent in exposing a natural occurrence in the process of learning a tune as a group. This will hopefully give you insight into exactly why I love my job. But nevertheless, I will remain suspicious of the cell phone in times ahead! 

Topics: Arts At KES, ARTS

Mr. Lakes  shares his weekly conversation with former KES student,   Trisha Neville (Class of 1999).

Topics: KES Alumni

On Wednesday, June 2 ^nd, we honoured our graduating Grade 9 Class of 2021.  While the COVID-19 pandemic prevented our 34 Grade 9 students and their parents from gathering on campus to celebrate with our customary Graduation Banquet, technology allowed us to gather virtually and to connect, contribute and celebrate meaningfully together.   A keepsake YouTube video was launched at 7:00 pm (KES time) and students from as far away as 12,000 kilometres watched in real time and joined in the group Zoom reception that followed. 

Topics: About King's-Edgehill School, Campus Life

At the beginning of our distance learning phase, for their Health & Wellness class, the Grades 6 and 7 students were assigned the task of recording their own trick shots. There were no boundaries to their imagination, and they were free to do whatever they wanted, as long as it was fun. It was very entertaining to watch all the creative and fabulous submissions coming in. You can tell that everyone put some thought into their shots, and they tried very hard to be perfect and almost everyone succeeded.

Topics: About King's-Edgehill School, Campus Life, kespride

Our Junior School has an amazing group of caring and dedicated students; evidence of this is always around us in their chatter in the hallways, their leadership in the classroom and in the volunteering that they do.  In a year of lockdowns, there were limited opportunities for our students to leave the campus to do the volunteering that they love.  No cleanups at Camp Mockingee, no pharmacy or Mermaid Theatre volunteers, no reading with elementary school children, no serving lunches at Harvest House, and no hospital or nursing home visitations.  Despite that, our Juniors have still accumulated over 1125 hours of service since September, and I’m so proud of each of them for the garbage pickups, the peer tutoring, the volunteer coaching, the chapel service, and so much more. 

Topics: King's-Edgehill School in the Community