Greetings SHMS community!
We have eleven days of classes left before CAPE exams begin. While these exams are one of many measures of student growth and achievement that we should all use to measure the impact of our work, they are also an important, public-facing data point that is used to measure our school’s quality and the impact of our community of educators on student learning. Because CAPE exams are not a test that anyone can cram for the night before, our educators have worked hard this year to prepare our students for personal growth and achievement in Math, literacy, and Science.
The use of a shared writing rubric in Humanities classes, practicing Claim-Evidence-Reasoning (CER) in all classes as a structure for written and spoken explanations of ideas, ReadingPlus, the 40 Book Challenge, and daily reading intervention classes are the core of our work to support students in literacy. In Math students practice CER to explain their thinking and problem-solving, complete weekly Zearn or iReady lessons, take intervention and acceleration courses, and use the same learning platform (Desmos) in their core Math classes to prepare for CAPE exams ranging from 6th grade to Algebra I. I expect that all of our students are familiar with these learning formats and activities and hope that you will join us in keeping them focused on upholding good habits in their practice in these final days before exams begin.
If you have any questions about how your student can make any final adjustments to their work in any of the three tested subjects it is best to reach out to their teachers. Based on some other data points that we monitor I am very optimistic that our students already have what it takes to them realize personal gains that will also showcase a school that is making notable year over year gains.
Thank you for showing up for our students and for your partnership in helping them navigate to high personal achievement. We have two weeks until testing begins and three weeks left in the third term, let’s make the most of the coming days together and have a great week!
Warm regards,
Eric Fraser
Principal
