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Welcome to the 2022-2023 Upper School Director Monthly e-Newsletter – the new school year is off to a great start!
Mountain Caravan was a special time filled with opportunities for bonding; it was wonderful to watch students make new friends, participate in an advisory challenge, and sing along to the famous Moth Song. This retreat has set the tone for the Upper School academic year, and it certainly has been a positive one!
We have some new structures and systems in place in the Upper School this academic year, which I'd like to provide more information on. The first, and probably most significant, is our new schedule, created to meet the needs of many. Several benefits behind this change include increased contact time for classes, an alignment among the Middle and Upper School divisions to support the sharing of teachers, and the implementation of both short and long block options to allow extra time where students might be deeply engaged in the material they are learning due to a variety of classroom activities.
Activities such as a literary discussion on character development, a lab activity in science, a lesson on data collection to confirm a mathematical principle, or an immersive independent project aimed at demonstrating in-depth learning are examples of learning activities that necessitate variable time blocks. A tumble mid-week also lessens the impact that early dismissal for sports can have on any one class.
Finally, this year's adjusted schedule provides more intentional time for students to meet with their advisors and as a whole community. Faculty advisors are dedicated to developing meaningful relationships with students, and to mentoring them throughout the high school journey.
In students' syllabi as well as within FACTS, you will also find a new universal vocabulary for CSS assessments, as Mr. Hamilton and I look to unify grading for students grades 6-12 and reflect academic best practices. For example, you may encounter never-before-seen words like “summative” and “formative” in teachers’ comments or assessments. A formative assessment, such as class discussions, quizzes, homework assignments, and rough drafts, allows students to practice with new material and information, and to receive feedback throughout the learning process whereas a summative assessment is intended to provide methods for students to demonstrate mastery of learning standards in a unit, quarter, or semester after incorporating feedback gathered through formative assessments. Examples of summative assessments can be a summative project, formal paper, formal lab report, presentation, portfolio, or test. As students transition from grade level to grade level, summative assessments will more largely impact their overall grade. Meanwhile, the weight of formative assessments will decrease over time. To that end, summative assessments may represent 40 percent of a sixth grader's overall grade, but may represent 80 percent of an 11th or 12th-grade student's overall grade.
This progression is designed to be sensitive to the development of each student, all the while preparing them for college, where they will be enrolled in some classes with grading only found in the form of summative assessments. Read more on summative and formative assessments here.
Finally, there has been an update to the Parent-Student Handbook regarding attendance. Students will now be able to make up work regardless of an absence being classified as excused or unexcused. This decision was made by the instructional leadership team in an effort to separate behavioral issues from academic issues. We think that being in school is critical to academic success, and while we'd hate for students to miss out on any engaging classroom experiences, we do understand that there are life events, which might necessitate an absence.
As division leaders, we wanted to be able to clearly understand trends in attendance so that - if a discussion with a family around attendance is required to support a student - we can clearly accommodate based on the circumstances. We have also automated attendance notifications, through which you will be notified via FACTS if your student is absent or tardy to a class during the day without having been reported by a parent and/or guardian as excused. Please contact Ms. Kelley Jefferson, Registrar, if an absence or tardy should be excused.
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