Dear Parents of 8th
grade students,
During quarter 3 our
8th Grade PE students have been engaged in a series of ‘Fitness’
lessons. Focusing mainly on cardio-respiratory endurance, many students
demonstrated a marked improvement in their 1 mile run scores, this bodes well
for the final fitness challenge of the year coming up in quarter 4 and prepares
them for their High School focus on fitness in PE. Some other students became
aware that they need to put in some additional effort in the area of
cardio-respiratory endurance if they expect to see an improvement.
In addition to our
focus on fitness, students have been engaged in ‘Badminton’ and
‘Touch-Rugby’ as part of our semester two Sports Unit. All students have
experienced a significant improvement in performance in Standard 1: ‘sending
& receiving’ on the move and in Standard 2: the ability to ‘use &
create space’ for scoring opportunities.
Following the spring parent-teacher
conferences students will have the opportunity to select an elective activity
from ‘Kayaking, ‘Dance’, ‘Volleyball’ or ‘Flag-Football’.
Assessment in these ‘electives’ is focused on ‘interpersonal skills’ (standard
5) rather than ‘performance skills’, students are encouraged to take a risk and
try an activity that they may have little prior experience in, assured that
their performance in a new/unfamiliar skill will not reflect negatively on
their grade.
Each
student’s ‘performance’ and ‘work habit’ assessments have been updated and are
available on the PowerSchool system. Please have your child guide you through
the system and use this as an opportunity to hear about their areas of growth
and the areas they need to pay more attention to.
In
any area where a student has been assessed at a level of proficiency that is
below ‘Meets Expectation’ their teacher will have provided feedback and
strategies for improvement via a comment attached to the associated assessment
on PowerSchool. This feedback along with the assessment rubrics (all available
on mDN) provide useful information to both parents and students with regard to
the criteria for assessment and areas to work on.
All
students have the opportunity to ‘redo’ an assessment (time permitting) in any
component of a standard where their overall level of proficiency is below ‘Meets
Expectation’. In order to take this opportunity:
- Students must reflect on the
comment/strategies offered on PowerSchool.
- Students must take the time to work
on improving their performance.
- Students must arrange a time
(outside of class and within two weeks of receiving their assessed level of
proficiency) to demonstrate their conceptual understanding and improved
performance.
As we move toward
summer, temperatures begin to rise and as we move toward the end of the school
year, we will move our program more indoors and students can enjoy our ‘Water
Adventure’ component and experience the final component of our Health Unit –
‘Healthy Sexuality. I will send out an email to parents two weeks before the
commencement of this series of lessons, detailing the content and providing a
reminder of the opportunity for you as a family to
engage in dialogue about healthy sexuality issues.
If
you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me via email.
Kind regards,
Michael
Coleman
Middle School
Physical Education Department
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Enjoy!
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