An Overview
OUR SCHOOL Meadowridge is an independent, coeducational, secular, International Baccalaureate Continuum World School serving students from Junior Kindergarten to Grade 12.
OUR MISSION
Learning to live well, with others and for others, in a just community.
OUR VISION
People are drawn to our school from around the world. In the spirit of active collaboration with teachers, peers, and our community, we learn how to care for ourselves and for others. Knowing that change is the only certainty, we engage with challenging and complex questions effectively and creatively. Through outstanding teaching, programs, and facilities, Meadowridge develops in us the confidence not only to meet the future, but also to create it.
2 Meadowridge School
Our
Philosophy Our mission is best carried out through connecting intellectual, emotional, social and physical learning with meaning in a child’s life in exciting, developmentally appropriate and challenging ways. As we continually create and enhance an environment which supports this mission, we see our vision come to life through the lives of our students, staff, families and graduates. Our graduates are active, engaged and involved in the world around them. They are prepared to shape the future, to serve and to lead. Creating these capacities in people takes time, effort and a strong, shared sense of purpose. If we foresee constant change, we should prepare continual learners. If we want a desirable future, we must help our children to be the creators of it. We believe that children should be dignified as active meaning-makers, not passive recipients. Children should learn how to acquire, use and share information in multiple forms and ways, so that it becomes meaningful knowledge. Children’s ways of thinking strongly involve imagination, emotions and community, and should play the entire symbolic range. The outstanding teaching, programs and facilities at Meadowridge should all reflect this conception of learning. Our children must be able to use the abundance of information around them in a variety of ways; to comprehend, to analyze, synthesize and evaluate; to create, to design and to produce. Our curriculum provides the substance with which children can learn the processes, dispositions and characteristics that will shape them into life-long learners and leaders. Our culture of care gives them a safe space to try things, to grow and to flourish so they can contribute as adults. Hurried children are not good learners, and they are not happy children, so learning has to be developmental, and support the natural stages. The IB Continuum supports this progression and the IB Learner Profile encapsulates the characteristics which fit our philosophy: Learning should be an adventure!
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Caring We show empathy, compassion and respect. We have a commitment to service, and we act to make a positive difference in the lives of others and in the world around us. We live in and cherish communities, not just ourselves, and so our children must be caring, so that natural justice will spread with them. This care for others has to inhabit not only our school, but the surrounding communities.
Community
The heart of independent education resides in the belief that parents are the first educators of their children, and that schools support families in this endeavor. We do not believe that the State has the right to control education, although it does have the responsibility to ensure that children are educated, and that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is respected. As a result, Meadowridge encourages the full participation of parents in every aspect of school life. Our Parent Guild is a core component of this, and parents are encouraged to attend meetings and become active within this organization. Notably, at every grade, there is a parent representative support to parents in that grade by communicating, answering questions, and providing procedural advice.
We do not invite parents to be involved with the school; we ask them to be heavily involved with their school – one where we all belong, and where we all contribute to our common goals. Parents organize a number of events in our school, working alongside our faculty and staff. Parents also volunteer in the classroom and in the library, in athletics, the arts and a host of other ways. There are often parent meetings and conferences about matters as they arise in the school. We count on parents to support our fundraising initiatives, especially our Annual Fund and community events. Many staff and teachers have children that attend the school, providing strong links between our families and the faculty, Board of Governors and Alumni. Most importantly, in our school, we view ourselves as a community. In some schools, parents refer to the school faculty, staff and governance when they say such things as “They are asking for money for Annual Giving”, or “They have a new Strategic Plan”, and so on. In our school, it is not us versus them. It is we who are asking ourselves, and it is our Strategic Plan. This sense of acting together is central to our school’s function. We do not invite parents to be involved with the school; we ask them to be heavily involved at the school – one where we all belong, and where we all contribute to our common goals.
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Open-minded We critically appreciate our own cultures and personal histories, as well as the values and traditions of others. We seek and evaluate a range of points of view, and we are willing to grow from the experience. Children must be open-minded, since the world is a changing place, and being adaptable requires open-mindedness.
Student Life
Leadership is the art of engaging others for the purpose of bringing about change, while service is the gift of time to benefit individuals or a community, acting as the voice for change. We believe in educating not only our students' heads and hands, but their hearts, as well; to this end, community service is an integral part of being a member of the Meadowridge community. Through service to others, Meadowridge students learn the difference they can make and the responsibility they have to contribute to our local and global communities. Each year, our students and staff give thousands of hours of volunteer service to the people and causes in which they believe. By doing so, they observe the benefits of such work and strive to lead their peers to evoke the same change. At Meadowridge School we believe that: • Leadership and service develop along a spectrum cultivating the attributes identified within the Learner Profile. • Leadership requires the willingness to think, act and reflect. • Leadership requires initiative, clarity of purpose and effective communication with which to influence others. • Leadership grows out of a philosophical and ethical ideal. • Leadership is situational. • Leadership encompasses a variety of leadership styles. • Service develops along a spectrum cultivating the attributes of the Learner Profile. • The purpose is meaningful and the end goal is thoughtful. • Everyone is capable and should engage in service at every grade level. • The outcome of mandated service is to promote a lifelong commitment and passion for helping. • Service should lead to personal growth through reflection. • There is a distinction between service and responsibility. • The goal of service is to advance positive change. • There is value in service at all levels. • Leadership and service are connected, but inherently different.
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Knowledgeable We develop and use conceptual understanding, exploring knowledge across a range of disciplines. We engage with issues and ideas that have local and global significance.
Teaching
Meadowridge is an International Baccalaureate (IB) Continuum World School, accredited through multiple organizations. We celebrate teaching and learning through the most balanced, demanding, and international curriculum in the world, and have built a culture which enables it: a community of families who believe that children best learn in a culture of conscious caring, academic challenge, clear and high expectation, constant communication, intercultural understanding, collaboration with families, creative teaching, and inviting and open facilities. We help children reach their potential in an environment of care where they are dignified and treated with kindness. The IB offers many benefits to teachers. IB teachers are given access to high-quality professional development that encourages critical thinking, self-reflection and dedication to lifelong learning and continuous improvement. We believe that by providing exceptional learning opportunities, each student will be inspired, supported, and challenged to lead a life of meaning and purpose. We offer a dynamic, challenging, and caring work environment. Our faculty and staff are an integral part of the Meadowridge community. Their passion for teaching, their commitment to the school, and their dedication to our students, is what sets us apart.
Our children must be able to recognize problems, and to love inquiry: they must know how to gather information – through books, digital means, interviews, observation, and listening and talking and being curious. They must come to know that not knowing the answer leads to growth and development. Meadowridge faculty and staff immerse themselves in school life, from coaching athletics teams, sponsoring clubs and chaperoning school trips, to supervising numerous co-curricular activities. Each day is different. Each day is rewarding. At Meadowridge, we contribute much of our success to our dedicated and hard-working staff. Our tight-knit organization provides a healthy life and work balance, with numerous events for staff throughout the year and a Mission to “live well with others and for others in a just community�. We ensure that Meadowridge is a place where faculty and staff enjoy coming to work every day!
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Inquirers We nurture our curiosity, developing skills for inquiry and research. We know how to learn independently and with others. We learn with enthusiasm and sustain our love of learning throughout life.
Learning Woven through our day-to-day interactions, larger lesson plans, and school curriculars and co-curriculars are the IB Learner Profile traits; they are skills and dispositions which our students both model and aspire to, shaping how we live and learn. Our students strive to become inquirers, knowledgeable, thinkers, communicators, principled, open-minded, caring, risk-takers, balanced, and reflective. We apply each of the Learner Profile traits in shaping our students’ heads, hearts and hands. It goes beyond intellectual development and academic success. As IB continuum learners, students across programs are provided an education which is broad and balanced, conceptual, and connected: each programme builds upon itself.
Broad and Balanced An IB education represents a balanced approach, offering students access to a broad range of content that spans academic subjects. In the PYP, learning aims to transcend boundaries between subject areas. As students develop in the PYP, MYP and DP, they engage subjectspecific knowledge and skills with increasing sophistication. Junior Kindergarten is the start of the continuum.
Conceptual Conceptual learning focuses on broad and powerful organizing ideas that have relevance within and across subject areas. They reach beyond national and cultural boundaries. Concepts help to integrate learning, add coherence to the curriculum, deepen disciplinary understanding, build the capacity to engage with complex ideas and allow transfer of learning to new contexts. PYP and MYP students encounter defined sets of key concepts, and students in the DP further develop their conceptual understanding.
Connected IB curriculum frameworks value concurrency of learning. Students encounter many subjects simultaneously throughout their programs of study; they learn to draw connections and pursue rich understandings about the interrelationship of knowledge and experience across many fields. Course aims and program requirements offer authentic opportunities to learn about the world in ways that reach beyond the scope of individual subjects.
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Risk-takers We approach uncertainty with forethought and determination; we work independently and cooperatively to explore new ideas and innovative strategies. We are resourceful and resilient in the face of challenges and change. As in every age before us, our children need to look after themselves. They need to understand their bodies, and what keeps them healthy. Children need to take risks, because life has no guarantees.
Field Trips, Clubs &
Co-Curriculars A strong academic program is just one aspect of a wellrounded education, and we aim to educate students from the inside out by fostering a spirit of community service and action. The culture at Meadowridge builds lasting friendships, a humble confidence, and emotional, social, moral and physical intelligence earned only through experience. Co-curricular experiences foster a sense of global interdependence, a shared responsibility for the earth and a connection to the environment. Our field trip and co-curricular programs involve students in active, engaged learning through unique, experiential adventure settings. The challenges, risks and intense experience from co-curricular activities are fundamental components of the physical, social and intellectual development of students. Field trips take place at all grade levels and as children mature, optional international travel opportunities take place in Middle School and High School. Classes go as a group and trips change location from year to year. Each year is full of challenges appropriate for the development and age of the student. Meadowridge School recognizes that field trips, when used for teaching and learning, provide educationally sound and important ingredients to the instructional program for our school. They supplement and enrich classrooms by providing learning experiences in an environment outside of the classroom. They inspire new interests in children. They help relate school experiences to the reality of the outside world. They give students the opportunity to study and explore real situations and processes in their actual environment. At Meadowridge School we offer clubs, co-curriculars and field trips so students can: • Explore interests and find a passion for something. • Join peers across grades that would otherwise not connect. • Provide more opportunity to become a well-rounded individual. • Learn a new skill and help to relieve academic stress. • Support academic pursuits with teacher in a comfortable setting.
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Balanced We understand the importance of balancing different aspects of our lives – intellectual, physical and emotional – to achieve well-being for ourselves and for others. We recognize our interdependence with other people and with the world in which we live.
Athletics Our Athletic Program supports students participating in multiple sports and promotes equal opportunities and experiences. In addition to athletic skill development, we instill positive attitudes that embrace the ideas of respect, teamwork, cooperation, and sportsmanship in our student athletes, as well as growth in self-esteem and self-discipline. The Meadowridge Athletics Program fosters skill development both on the court (or field or track) and off. Students hone their skills and are encouraged by dedicated coaches to work harder and model the traits of a Meadowridge athlete: citizenship, sportsmanship, integrity, and respect for sport, self, and others. Athletics are an important part of our educational programs, and a central feature of our mission to educate the whole child.
Children need to be balanced, ensuring that they are looking after their heads, their hearts and their hands; intellect, emotions and body; thoughts, words and deeds. We have a wide variety of athletic teams ranging from individual sports such as running, fencing, swimming and badminton to team sports such as soccer, basketball and volleyball. Our students have the opportunity to compete in a variety of leagues throughout the North Fraser Valley, Metro Vancouver and Vancouver Island in both public and independent school leagues. Meadowridge Gryphons currently participate in seven different athletic associations that provide students in Grades 3 to Grade 12 with opportunities to compete in everything from play days to provincial championships. Our sports teams and co-curriculars are served by two or more coaches. Our coaching roster is made up of teachers, parent volunteers, alumni and external coaches who work to bring out the best in every student athlete.
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Thinkers We use critical and creative thinking to analyze and take responsible action on complex problems. We exercise initiative in making reasoned, ethical decisions.
Educational
Technology We believe in the seamless application and authentic integration of appropriate technology by all learners in their daily lives to facilitate their understanding, learn independently and become responsible global citizens. The use of technology in our school is guided by our understandings of how students learn. It is appropriately and seamlessly woven into the fabric of our learning practices to enhance the learner experience rather than change it. By integrating current mediums for collaboration, connection and sharing, our students are empowered to take ownership of their learning and have a voice in the classroom, school and the world.
How do our students and faculty employ technology? At Meadowridge, we teach our students to acquire, use and share information in multiple forms and ways so that it becomes meaningful knowledge. When it comes to technology, every decision we make is based on learning and on learners. Educational technology runs alongside and complements our outstanding teaching.
Our children need to know how to think, acquire, use, and share information, and how to apply that learning to the problems and challenges that await them. The way we teach our children to think is what they will take with them to become the leaders of the future. Process has become the new content, and our model of learning is a strong curriculum.
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Communicators We express ourselves confidently and creatively in more than one language and in many ways. We collaborate effectively, listening carefully to the perspectives of other individuals and groups.
Fine & Performing
Arts
Our children must be able to communicate, and be able to play the entire symbolic range: language, art, dance, movement, mathematics, photography, film and multimedia. Most importantly, they must understand the qualities of excellent communication. They must be able to affect an audience and to understand when and how communication affects them. Fine and Performing Arts at Meadowridge are viewed as a combined process of passionate emotions, deliberate thoughts and unique abilities, expressed through a variety of media. We believe instruction in the Arts plays an important role in a liberal education. Our students work with inspiring teachers in visual arts, Drama and Music, fostering a lifelong appreciation of art, for both the inherent aesthetic value and the relevance to society as a whole.
Visual Arts Our PYP students enjoy a multi-disciplinary approach to visual arts. They learn the elements and principles of art and design through working with a variety of media. Our MYP and DP provides a medium for students to further express opinions, to reflect on social issues, to develop selfconfidence and, most importantly, to be creative.
Drama Forming part of the curriculum from Grade 6 through 12, this creative art form further develops concentration, creativity, self-confidence and social awareness. Students learn to work independently to develop an understanding of themselves, and in groups to further their in-depth explorations of relationships, conflict and impressions. We offer many performance opportunities through the year.
Music Music is integral to our students’ personal development as they learn by imitating great works and infusing their own creativity. Our programs emphasize the exploration and expression of music and culture through a variety of instruments. The PYP and MYP teach in fun and motivating group structures, while the DP offers opportunities for both individual and shared creativity. Every year, our students give compelling musical performances. Students learn through creative expression: they learn to understand and to analyze, to problem solve and to self-express, and they learn about themselves and about the world around them.
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Reflective We thoughtfully consider the world and our own ideas and experience. We work to understand our strengths and weaknesses in order to support our learning and personal development. Children need to be able to regard themselves, and reflect on what they do, or think, or believe, because the only real knowledge is self-knowledge.
Graduation
Program Our graduates are more than their marks. They are national athletes, dancers, martial artists, musicians, vocalists, actors, designers, programmers, humanitarians, leaders and more. They are future engineers, artists, doctors, game designers and politicians. Aspiring entrepreneurs, researchers, dentists, neuroscientists and psychologists. Post-secondary counsellors start meeting with students early in their academic careers. Through oneon-one meetings, information sessions, and collaborative gatherings with their teachers, students learn to increase their self-awareness, discover their passions and define their post-secondary goals. The program is structured for students to define their priorities, acquire research skills and learn to make important decisions in an environment of teamwork and community support. It is our goal that students choose universities where they will be creative, active contributors who thrive and excel.
We want our graduates to shape our world, to serve, and to lead. By starting the process in a student’s Grade 9 year, along with engaging them throughout the entire process, students become more responsible for their grades and learning, while meeting application requirements. The post-secondary search process is thorough and all-encompassing. We are proud of what they have achieved, but even more proud of the impact they will make on the world and our future.
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Principled We act with integrity and honesty, with a strong sense of fairness and justice, and with respect for the dignity and rights of people elsewhere. We take responsibility for our actions and their consequences. Our children need to be principled in their decision-making and in their actions, to ensure that they live well, with others and for others, and create just communities locally and globally.
School
Governance Our school is governed by a Board of Governors which is elected at our Annual General Meeting by Society members. The Board follows the Principles of Good Practice as outlined by the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), and also adheres to the ethical and practical principles as articulated by the Independent Schools’ Association of British Columbia (ISABC). Governance is also part of our accreditation by the Canadian Accredited Independent Schools Association (CAIS), Council of International Schools (CIS) and the International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO). Our Governance practice has been commended by several of these organizations. The Board creates policy and provides direction to the school through strategic planning. Through its committee structure, our Board oversees each facet of the school governance – Finance, Facilities, Communication, Head Support and Evaluation, and Advancement – in alignment with the Strategic Plan. The Board provides this framework for school direction, and has a single employee – the Headmaster – who is the CEO of the Society and the School, and who also is responsible for the operations of the School. The Headmaster puts the Strategic Plan into operation and works in collaboration with the Board in order to articulate annual goals, which are measured each year in order to ensure excellence. The Headmaster, as CEO of the School, is responsible for putting financial processes into place which are clear, accurate, and ensure the progress and safety of the school, consistent with the Strategic Plan. The Board collaborates in these processes through the Finance Committee, which meets with the Head monthly, and reports to the Board. Meadowridge School is a not-for-profit Society and is a registered charity with the CRA. Although not formally a requirement of our Society, we conduct an annual audit which is accessible online through our website. We have been commended in several arms-length accreditations for our stability, innovation, and clarity in our finances. It should also be noted that all Board Members and school employees sign a Conflict of Interest policy annually, ensuring that our rules are clear, and that no conflict or perceived conflict arises.
We are proud to be accreditated and members of the following organizations:
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Learning to live well, with others and for others, in a just community.
DO YOU HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT MEADOWRIDGE? Contact our Admissions Office at admissions@meadowridge.bc.ca
12224 240th Street Maple Ridge, BC V4R 1N1 www.meadowridge.bc.ca