{"id":17360,"date":"2017-05-24T16:16:40","date_gmt":"2017-05-24T20:16:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=17360"},"modified":"2017-05-24T16:16:40","modified_gmt":"2017-05-24T20:16:40","slug":"incoming-grade-9-students-will-be-prepared-for-a-global-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/incoming-grade-9-students-will-be-prepared-for-a-global-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Incoming Grade 9 students will be prepared for a global future"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re in a canoe with 19 other people, it is probably best to make sure you\u2019re all rowing in the same direction.
\nThat\u2019s exactly the experience Josie Hadden was faced with just starting Grade 9 at Pickering College.
\nAn Aurora student who joined the Newmarket independent school towards the end of Grade 8, Josie was a relative newcomer to the school when she plunged into Grade 9. Thankfully, everyone was quite literally in the same boat.
\n\u201cWe had to work together and be on the same page to move that canoe,\u201d says Josie about her Grade 9 trip to Camp Tawingo near Muskoka at the start of the 2016-2017 school year, a trip designed to build camaraderie amongst Grade 9 students, many of whom were coming to Pickering College from the public school stream. \u201cSome of us had to work harder because other students couldn\u2019t push as hard, we had code words, and it was fun. I really learned a lot about students in my class and really bonded with them.\u201d
\nAnd that, in a nutshell, is just the first way Pickering College sets itself apart.
\nGrade 8 students from across the Region are gearing up for their final exams, knowing that after just a couple of months off for summer vacation, they are headed to high school, whether in the public, separate or independent streams.
\nIf they are headed to \u2013 or are considering Pickering College \u2013 they know what awaits them will be a little bit out of the norm.
\n\u201cWe have students who are new to the school and haven\u2019t had the Pickering experience yet, so we have to get them integrated fairly quickly,\u201d says Janet Downer, Director of Middle and Senior School, at Pickering College. \u201cWe begin the year with a four-day camping trip at Camp Tawingo and it is a time for students to get to know each other and to bond as a group \u2013 both with the students and the teachers as well.\u201d
\nThe relationship between students and teachers, and among the students itself, is a hallmark with which Pickering College prides itself. With smaller class sizes and programs and Advisor Groups designed to build ongoing bonds, Ms. Downer says their program has taken the emphasis off teacher directed learning to student directed through collaborative learning, group work and pushing the limits of their own innovation and creativity.Among the key components of this is Pickering College\u2019s Global Leadership Program, which is designed to encourage students to consider what they are learning in a wider global context and develop the skills necessary to go out into the world. Lessons in the Global Leadership Program are augmented by the Co-Curricular Program, which is intended to expose students to various activities \u2013 from athletics, to in-school clubs, to volunteer opportunities out in the wider community \u2013 they might not otherwise be keen to try.
\nFor each individual student, all this is steered in a very hands-on way by teachers and other students alike in Advisor Groups, tailored to provide students with not only a regular faculty member but students from across grades, cultures and backgrounds.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s nice to have international students in my Advisor Group because I get to learn about different cultures and what it is like to live in their countries,\u201d says Josie. \u201cEveryone in my Advisor Group is amazing and it is so nice to have that support. They just take all that stress off me when I can just talk to them; they are just like friends and family and it is amazing.\u201d
\nSeeing these relationships develop are what Ms. Downer says are the most rewarding aspects of the job.
\n\u201cWe have students who come from countries all over the world \u2013 Mexico, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Russia \u2013 and it is really rewarding for me to see that all of these students are working together, building friendships, feeling good and secure about being in this environment,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen students feel safe and secure, this carries over to success in their academics as well.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re in a canoe with 19 other people, it is probably best to make sure you\u2019re all rowing in the same direction. That\u2019s exactly the experience Josie Hadden was faced with just starting Grade 9 at Pickering College. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2017-05-25-05.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-4w0","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-04 07:36:47","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}