Feb 10, 20233 min read

Message from the Principals 2/10/2023

Hello Hope Community!

1: Important Reminders

2: Curriculum Focus: Learning Goals - Knowledge

3: Learning Highlight

4: House Points

5: Photos of the week

Thank you to all parents that joined our Open School on Tuesday!

1: Important Reminders

Valentine's Day - Feb 14th.
- Students can wear red/pink/white clothes to celebrate the day.
- Students may bring candy / chocolates, but it must be for the whole class. The candy must be wrapped, and it must be consumed at home.
Feb 20th - NO SCHOOL (Presidents' Day)
Hope Family Day - March 17th (13:00-15:00)
- Please complete this form before March 10th so we can better prepare.
Parent Teacher Conference - March 24th (IN-PERSON!)
- NOTE: Please ONLY register to meet with your child's Homeroom Teacher
Parent workshop will be held on March 24th (After the PTC) from 4:00-5:00
- Workshop: "Building the Home - School connection"
  - We will provide an interactive session for parents to engage in strategies that can be applied to support their child's continued learning at home.
LEAP will start from February 28th!!
- Parents will be contacted directly if their child will join LEAP.

2: Curriculum Focus: Learning Goals - Knowledge

As most of you will have seen through the end of Semester 1 Report Cards, the IPC and the IMYC break up the Learning Goals of the curriculum into 3 categories:

Knowledge
Skills
Understanding

Each type of Learning Goal has been defined at Hope through conversations with teachers, students and the community. Hope’s definition of Knowledge is:

“Facts and information we learn”

As shared in a previous Curriculum Focus, every IPC and IMYC unit has a “Knowledge Harvest” which allows students to demonstrate what they may already know about a topic, as well as an opportunity for the teacher to identify any potential gaps that need to be addressed. The teacher will then plan the unit to support children in learning the facts and information needed for the given unit.

Students can demonstrate knowledge in a variety of ways, whether this be through class quizzes, online platforms like Kahoot and Quizizz, worksheets, presentations about key information, classroom questioning and many other methods. As knowledge is based around facts, it can be more easily checked as being correct or incorrect.

Knowledge will also continue to expand throughout a student’s time at Hope. For example, in IPC, students will begin to learn about basic Push/Pull forces in Grade 1, and add to this base through Elementary adding concepts like friction, gravity, velocity, etc. Teachers will support all students at Hope with techniques to grow memory retention, and through this, the knowledge base of the student will continually grow.

3: Learning Highlight - EngageMATH

At Hope we value the development of the student's Math skills and have therefore adopted the Singapore Math Curriculum.

Singapore Math is a teaching method used in the primary and secondary schools in Singapore. It has become popular in many countries worldwide due to its emphasis on problem-solving, critical thinking, and visual learning. The curriculum focuses on developing students' understanding of mathematical concepts through a concrete-pictorial-abstract approach. This means that students start by using physical manipulatives and pictures to help them understand mathematical concepts, before moving on to abstract thinking and symbols.

The curriculum covers a wide range of topics, including number sense and operations, geometry, measurement, data handling, and algorithms. It places a strong emphasis on mental math and encourages students to use a variety of problem-solving strategies.

In addition, the curriculum promotes real-life applications of mathematics and encourages students to use math in their daily lives. It also helps students develop a positive attitude towards mathematics and an appreciation of its beauty and elegance.

Overall, the Singapore Math curriculum is known for its rigor, its focus on problem-solving, and its emphasis on developing a strong foundation in mathematical concepts.

To help support our students improve their math knowledge, skills, and understanding, our high achieving students meet once a week to help mentor other students! We call this program "EngageMath" and the students volunteer their time to support the growth of their younger classmates.

Here are some photos of their hard work!