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Welcome to Mr. M's Website!
This is my family at Butterfly World in Victoria in the Spring of 2011: Ms. Walls (my wife and a teacher at Watson Road Elementary), Zadie (my 8-year-old daughter in Grade 3), me, and Kai (my 3-year-old son).
Some documents on this website are in Portable Document Format (PDF) and require Adobe Acrobat Reader software. Click here to download it:
October 5, 2011
Parent Information "Prezi"
Yours sincerely,
Mr. M.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
- Albert Einstein
September 27, 2011
Parent Information Sessions on Early Dismissal Days October 5th & 6th
A notice from the school relating to early dismissal days and home-school communication came home today. I also sent out my first e-newsletter of the year on Sunday, and it included information about these two topics. If you did not receive it and would like to be added to my mailing list, please let me know (or check your spam filter to see if it's in there, and then add my address - cmcleod@sd23.bc.ca - to your address book). Here's part of what my e-newsletter said:
As part of the current job action, teachers are not participating in administration-driven parent-teacher conferences; however, we continue to value opportunities to communicate with parents so that we can work together to make school as successful as possible for your child. As a result, there will not be the conventional parent-teacher conferences on this year's October early dismissal days (coming up on Wednesday, October 5th and Thursday, October 6th). Instead, I will
be hosting two Parent Information Sessions on those days (one at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, and one at 1:30 p.m. on Thursday). These sessions will involve me explaining some aspects of my approach to teaching, and there will be an opportunity for questions and answers with me and for your child to show you the classroom and samples of their work. Then, later in the term, once I have more of a chance to do some meaningful assessment and evaluation of your child's progress, I will provide you with some informal feedback about that progress, either in the form of (a) some kind of written summary, (b) a telephone conversation, or (c) a face-to-face meeting arranged later in the term. I am also open to meeting with parents who have pressing concerns that we need to deal with right now (if you feel that this applies to you, please send me an e-mail, and we can arrange a time to meet that works for both of us). Even though there is sure to be some anxiety on the part of parents and teachers
about this departure from the traditional parent-teacher conference format, I am actually excited about the potential that it gives us to flexibly tailor our mode of communication and its timing so that it better meets our needs and serves the interests of your children (my students).
In summary, I will host Parent Information Sessions at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, October 5, 2011 and at 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 6, 2011, and I will be providing informal but personalized feedback about your child's progress in one of these ways this term:
- in writing later in the term, once I have had more of a chance to meaningful assess your child's progress (perhaps a note sent home with information about your child's progress);
- over the phone later in the term, once I have had more of a chance to meaningful assess your child's progress;
- in person at a mutually-agreeable time later in the term, once I have had more of a chance to meaningful assess your child's progress; or
- if there are urgent or pressing issues that we should discuss immediately, over the phone or in person, as soon as we can arrange a mutually-agreeable time.
Thanks for your attention, and please feel free to contact me if you have any questions, comments, or concerns. The easiest (and most effective) way to communicate with me is by e-mail at cmcleod@sd23.bc.ca.
Yours sincerely,
Mr. M.
"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."
- Albert Einstein
PS I recently updated the Assignments page on this website (you can see the criteria for the students' weather reports on that page, as well as information about our weather data tables and this week's brain teaser).
September 5, 2011
Welcome Back to Another School Year
I'm looking forward to a great year, and I hope you are, too. As we start a new school year, I think it's really important to remember the power of kindness. The kinder we are to each other as the year progresses, the better we'll feel at school, and the more we will all learn and thrive. For your information, I have uploaded my September, 2011 newsletter to the Curriculum folder on the left, and there are several documents with helpful information for the back-to-school season in the Educational Reading folder (ranging from lunch ideas to helping with homework to how much sleep students need).
Yours sincerely,
Mr. M.
"Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see."
- Mark Twain
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