News and Updates
OCTOBER 2011
Mid Semester Reports will be sent home Friday, October 7th. The following Monday, October 10th, there will be NO CLASSES. Instead, you are invited to see the teachers of your child, on our Parent Teacher Conference day, any time from 8 am until noon, or from 1 pm until 3:30 pm. This is an important opportunity for parents to discuss their child’s progress on a day devoted to all aspects of each student’s learning and development. Make appointments to see all of your child’s teachers, preferably in the company of the student. Please try to keep to the scheduled times, 15 minutes per meeting, for the benefit of other families booked to follow you.
We would like to ask you or your child to sign up for meeting times during the school week of October 3-7. Booking sheets for Lower School teachers will be posted on the Lower School bulletin board. Lower School teachers will hold conferences in their classrooms. Middle and Upper School sign-ups will be handled by each teacher in their classroom. Meetings with Middle and Upper School teachers will, for the most part, be held in their regular classrooms. However, some teachers will be assigned to different locations. A list showing where to find Middle and Upper School faculty will be posted in the Administration Office, Ogilby Hall and Middle School. Students will be given a schedule sheet to complete and take home showing the time and location of each meeting.
A special “thank you” to all of our parents and guardians who met with Ms. Val Staley of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) and Mr. Peter Gittins of the Council of International Schools (CIS) during their Preliminary Visit to our campus last month.
Mr. Gittins told school administration that Brent is in “good shape” as we move forward in the two-year self-study, part of a process that we are hopeful will conclude with our re-accreditation with WASC along with the addition of the well-regarded CIS accreditation. There is a lot of work ahead in a rigorous evaluation program set against demanding standards developed specifically for international schools. We will be calling on all of you again to help in the coming months and I look forward to the favorable response we always receive from our school community. If you have any questions about the accreditation process, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Our seniors are working to come to terms with all that is entailed in writing their Extended Essays. Brent held an Extended Essay Writing Retreat last month that saw some students make great strides towards completing this challenging piece of research writing while others experienced an important reality check, aware of just how much work they still need to do. We appreciate the support we have received from parents in making changes to schedules and routines to allow seniors to attend events of this kind.
The PSAT (Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test) will be given to all juniors on the morning of Wednesday, October 12. Grade 10 students are strongly encouraged to take the test. Similar in format to the SAT, the PSAT measures the critical reading, math problem solving, and writing skills that students have developed through the first half of their high school career. The PSAT will give students first hand practice for the SAT I (Reasoning Test) that is taken by most every student applying for colleges in the United States.
And the girls and two-time defending champion boys volleyball teams will be away at the ISAC Tournament at Southville International School, October 5-8. The teams have been training hard and the athletes are eager to represent the school. Let’s wish them well and do all we can to support them in keeping up with their studies.