May 23rd, 2021 HILL Message (from Academic Director Rick Kunc): This past week Ms. Languay invited the faculty to participate in surveys that her HSP 3U course was using for their final projects. This course is an introduction to Anthropology, Psychology, and Sociology. Some of the topics of these surveys included Sports & Long-Term Success, Effects of Divorce/Separation on Youth Mental Health, Dating during COVID-19, Youth & Part-Time Work, Patterns of human behaviour leading to COVID-19 and many other engaging topics. It made me reflect on the care, creativity, and professionalism our faculty have shown throughout this challenging school year to engage our student-athletes in their learning. I have seen students build joints in Kinesiology, fly airplanes in math class, and pursue passion projects in junior school. Along with many other examples of engaging learning activities. And upon reflection what is also evident is that each of these activities have provided students to have choice in their learning and how they demonstrate their learning. Often institutions talk about what they are going to do, but then fall short in delivery. I am grateful for our faculty who even with the many challenges thrown at them this year, they have continued to demonstrate the “Individual Attention” that we say our student-athletes will receive in the classroom. So, as we move towards the end of this ever-changing school year, I want to say thank you to our faculty for these efforts in making teaching and learning individualized, relevant and engaging. And thank you to our students for running with these opportunities and learning the lessons that lie within these experiences.
Quote of the Week: The learned person is not the one who gives the right answers; it is the one who asks the right questions. -UnknownUNk _____________________________________________________________________________
HILL Athletics (From Athletic Director Brodie Merrill): It has been a fun time of year following our lacrosse alumni competing in the NCAA tournament and our hockey alumni competing in the NHL playoffs. From Kam Halsall’s epic goaltending performance for Stony Brook in a near upset over #1 UNC, to Adam Charalambides leading Rutgers with 4 goals in their quarterfinal matchup, to former Hill Prep Captain Ryan Lomberg scoring the OT winner for the Florida Panthers. I hope watching these performances reinforce the message to our current students that your goals are attainable if you are willing to put the work in. All of these players were once in your shoes! Below is some feedback from Hill Coaches: “As the school year is winding down we are beginning exit interviews with each player to focus on summer plans, areas to focus on, and thank them for their commitment throughout the year.” -Coach Reilly O’Connor "I would like to commend all the players still showing up to remote practice and workouts. It doesn’t go unnoticed and your hard work will pay off. 'Champions are made when nobody is watching.'" -Coach Luc Magnan. Varsity Lacrosse “The girls continue to impress with their level of engagement and desire to treat this time as a period to grow. They have truly embraced the control what you can control mentality.” -Coach Carly Quinn, Girls Lacrosse “Junior Varsity has done a great job keeping the consistency and effort up during team workouts, they are finishing the year strong. The work they are putting in now will pay off when they can return to the ice.” -Coach Brett Maclean, Varsity Hockey “Varsity hockey is continuing to take advantage of our guest speakers, deepening their commitment to being students of the game.” -Coach Robbie Demontis, Varsity Hockey “We continue to be impressed with the student-athletes who remain consistent with their engagement and approach to training and class. They’re taking advantage of this time and finding ways to make progress towards the pursuit of their goals.” -Coach Drazen Glisic, Strength and Conditioning “The biggest takeaway from the week involved the head coach of the University of Nebraska-Omaha. He talked about the equation E+R=O, which means Event + Response = Outcome. You can’t control the event or even the outcome, but you can control your response. It’s a great message at this moment with all the uncertainty in the world. How will you respond?” -Coach Travis Wight, Prep Hockey In a serendipitous way, I ran into Jamieson’s dad Mark Kulhmann, exploring the new turf field for the first time. It was cool to see it through his eyes and we both got excited envisioning future Hill teams playing and competing on the field. I know we can get FOMO watching sports in the US. Remind yourself that your time is coming soon and to stay the course. We can see some progress, so ramp up your training, a lot of exciting opportunities on the horizon!
Other Notes and Important Information: Tuesday Morning Assembly: There is a Tuesday morning assembly on Tuesday. All students will tune in by clicking the Microsoft Teams link below at 8:30 am: Tuesday Morning Assembly Save the Dates! Graduation Ceremonies After the most recent communication about Provincial restrictions, we have moved our scheduled celebration days from June 10-11 to June 17-18. Grade 8 graduates, Grade 12 graduates and recipients of various awards will receive invitations to our proposed events. Vaccination Updates Peel Public Health is hosting a webinar on the topic of student vaccinations. This live webinar will be held on Wednesday, May 26 from 7:00-7:45 pm. The poster for this event is attached here. Graduation Requirements 2020-2021 Students who plan to graduate in June 2021 must complete a minimum of 20 hours of community involvement (reduced from 40 hours). Students must have their hours into Guidance before May 25th, 2021. Grade 9 Guidance Meetings The Guidance department is booking the final round of grade 9 Guidance meetings. Please use THIS LINK to schedule a meeting with the Guidance team. Please note that the meetings are scheduled for lunch hours and if there is a conflict, we will reach out to reschedule with a Teams link. Ontario Literacy Test 2021 (OSSLT) The EQAO is planning to resume field tests for the online Literacy test once schools are back in person. The test will be scheduled in the 2021-2022 school year and will likely be a graduation requirement for 2022 graduates. We will share more information about the test, format, and availability once we have it. Mental Health Resources There are a lot of valuable resources available to families who are navigating this unusual time together. One such resource is the CMH page on COVID-19 Mental Health response found here. Our staff is also available and we encourage students or families to reach out to us. We are also building onto our Wellness Resources on the Guidance website here HSP3U Course: Project Surveys The Grade 11 students in the HSP3U: Introduction to Anthropology, Psychology, and Sociology course have put together a series of anonymous surveys to collect data for their final project in the course. It would be a great help to them if students, staff, and families in the Hill Academy community could participate by completing a couple of their surveys. Each survey is anonymous and should take no more than 5 minutes to complete - NO personal information is collected through our class surveys! This week is the last chance for students to gather data for their research projects - the surveys remaining in the spreadsheet have not yet reached the required number of participants and could really use your help! If you have 5 minutes to spare and would like to help an HSP3U student by completing their survey, please head over to the following LINK.