Dear Parents and Students,
Welcome back to school! We hope you had a joyful and refreshing summer vacation. We have gotten off to a great start, with students quickly getting back into the school routine. During the 2017-2018 school year, we will continue to build upon and refine our proven foundation of good work, honored traditions, and continued excellence in education. We would even like to welcome Grade 4 students in the Middle School, hoping that this year will be a fun- filled and a fruitful year for them.
Each day we work very hard to provide a safe, engaging and rewarding educational environment for all students equally.
Our main concern in Middle School is to prepare our students for the future by setting standards for international education. To be able to provide a strong platform for our learners to progress from one stage to the next, we are opening the opportunity for our learners to appear for the Cambridge Checkpoint Exams in Grades 6 and 8 the Map exams for grade 5 and 7 the DELF Exam in Grade 8.
Cambridge Checkpoint Exams are available in English, Mathematics and Science. They are devised to give beneficial feedback on each learner’s strengths and weaknesses before they proceed to the next stage of education. The tests are marked in Cambridge and contribute to our school with an external international benchmark for learner performance. Each learner receives a statement of achievement and a diagnostic evaluation report giving our school and parents meticulous information. Our students usually sit for the exams in April, at the end of the academic year, whereby we make sure that the Curriculum Framework has been covered.
You may be familiar with paper and pencil tests where all students are asked the same questions and spend a fixed amount of time taking the test. MAP is different. MAP is a computer adaptive test, which means every student gets a unique set of test questions based on responses to previous questions. As the student answers correctly, questions get more challenging. If the student answers incorrectly, the questions get easier. By the end of the test, most students will answer about half the questions correctly. MAP can follow students wherever they are starting from, regardless of the grade they are in. For instance, if a third grader is actually reading like a fifth grader, MAP will be able to identify that. Or, if a fifth grader is doing math like a third grader, MAP will identify that. Both are incredibly important for a teacher to know, so that they can plan instruction efficiently. MAP covers Reading, Language Usage, and Math.
The DELF Diploma offers an international recognition of French proficiency. It is a testimonial to the students’ success in learning French. It is recognized internationally by Francophone institutions. The exam covers the four basic language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing.
This year promises to be a year filled with golden opportunities for all our students as we strive to find ways that we can be even better than we were before! We embark on this journey with a pledge to you, our students and parents, that this will be a year of engaging, meaningful and rigorous work in our classrooms, combined with special events, a plethora of extracurricular clubs and activities, performing arts groups, project based sessions certain to encourage our students to be involved and stay connected!
With enthusiasm, we look forward to this academic year as an opportunity to continue to nurture as a school community. Again, we welcome you to The Grove and to our wonderful learning community, a place alive with much energy, enthusiasm and a high standard of excellence! It is, indeed, a place where opportunities abound! Here’s to an AWESOME new school year as we work together to make our school a great place to work and learn each day!
Middle School Administration