Another Year of Discovery Begins

This week, our hallways filled with the excitement of returning students reuniting with teachers and classmates and new faces settling in. To every family joining us for the first time, welcome. To all returning families, welcome back.

In the weeks before students arrived, our hallways at both campuses were buzzing with our administration teams preparing for opening day, and faculty members taking part in numerous training sessions.

New faculty members participated in the annual Summer Institute, two days of onboarding that included a deep dive into the school’s relational approach. Our Department Heads and Instructional Leads took part in a leadership workshop led by educational consultant Meghan Webster centred on how to manage polarities, and psychologist and author Jody Carrington ,joined our team for a full day of learning focused on connection and relationships.

At an all-school faculty and staff assembly, Head of School Michael O’Connor and Directors of Teaching and Learning, Dani Jansen (High School) and Laura Officer (Elementary School), returned to a through-line that shapes every decision made here: how do we ensure that every child feels genuinely known, and that the learning that follows actually lasts?

We have been answering those two questions since 1930. This year, the school gave the thinking behind those choices two pillars: environment and teaching and learning.

The environment setting shows up in real decisions like small class sizes, a dedicated advisor program, and no uniforms, each one a deliberate choice about how a student is seen and known.

“High expectations are only possible in a high-warmth environment.”

— Michael O’Connor, Head of School

At St. George’s, relationships come first. A student will take on real academic risk, trying and possibly failing, only once they feel known and safe. That’s when ownership of their own success begins.

Knowing Every Learner

Belonging looks different for every student. During this year’s Summer Institute, Learning Enrichment Coordinator Melissa Dair walked new teachers through the philosophy behind the Centre for Learning Enrichment (CLE). Understand each student’s strengths first, rather than starting from what a student struggles with. That philosophy reaches every learner. Differentiation, she explained, is something every teacher does here, adjusting how a lesson is taught so each individual can access it in their own way.

Accommodations go a step further for students who need them, changing how a learner shows what they know without changing what is expected of them. Learning, she told them, rarely moves in a straight line: a student can look stuck for a long stretch, then leap forward all at once, after the right kind of support clicks into place.

Teaching and learning means something just as individual: curriculum and pedagogy built deliberately around how a student actually learns, through real, hands-on work. Every year, High School robotics students spend months building a machine to compete in the Canadian Robotics Competition, against CEGEP and technical college teams. At the Elementary School, students from Kindergarten to Grade 6 spend an afternoon cleaning the Lachine shoreline during Earth Week, pulling styrofoam, old cans, and rusted grills from the water’s edge. Each spring at Bike Fest, students get up close with mechanics to diagnose and fix issues like a squeaky brake. Read More

Welcome Week

Our first week back is where our environment was expressed authentically. Elementary School students returned yesterday, and High School students followed today, both greeted by teachers who had spent the week before getting ready to welcome them,

Earlier in the week, new families gathered before heading inside for a welcome from Head of School Michael O’Connor, Elementary School Principal Aidan De Jean, Senior Director of Enrolment Kathay Carson, and Laura Officer Elementary School Director of Teaching and Learning, while new students settled in with an art activity of their own. On the sports field, returning students broke into a run to find friends, while new students met their teachers and classmates for the first time. Our youngest learners in Kindergarten were welcomed with a start of their own, and at the High School, new families in Grades 8 to 11 were welcomed with campus tours led by student ambassadors.

This is what our first week back revealed: an environment built on relationships, intertwined with real learning, and a community that will keep it that way all year long. The two questions we started with- how do we make sure a child feels genuinely known, and how do we make sure the learning that follows actually lasts don’t have a finish line. They’re what we’ll keep asking together, in every classroom this year, and in every connection still ahead.