Folks,
I trust you all were able to access your child’s grade report (for Grades 7 & 8) and/or checklists (for Grade 6), and view their progress throughout the first semester of this year. Even more importantly, I hope you were able to engage in a conversation with your child, touching on strengths, challenges and upcoming new habits and goals. We have been spending time lately on goal-setting in particular, in various formats from HomeBase activities to class activities to Morning Meeting activities. I’ve even shared some of my goals with the students as a way to model, talk about, examine, and adjust. You may want to ask them about my big passionate goal or my goal that incorporates risk-taking!
Morning Meeting: We hosted two Upper School (US) girls at Morning Meeting recently who came to encourage our young adolescent girls to get involved with science. WISE (Women in Science Education) is an US club whose outreach is to help celebrate and encourage girls and science. The club has offered to provide extra help in the STEM classrooms for 7th and 8th grade, offer occasional special “science lunches” and invite middle school students to outside lectures.
Mindfulness: More and more studies are showing the potential benefits of mindfulness practices for students –to improve physical health, psychological well-being, social skills, even academic performance in some cases– as well as for teachers and administrators –primarily to reduce stress and burnout. Every Tuesday we offer Quiet Zone during recess where middle school students and faculty can enjoy a few moments of quiet.
Here is a video that students saw earlier this week about the Quiet Zone.
Hug your child and Go Bulldogs,
Kathy Christoph
MS Principal