The Brentwood Way: Going Above and Beyond

On Friday, August 30th, while our students were enjoying the final hours of their summer holidays, our faculty were engrossed in a professional development day with Tom Schimmer – an expert in formative and summative assessment.  In short, he discussed how we, as teachers, should assess student learning – ongoing or formative – and at a natural break or end – summative.  Assessment is our main professional development strategy for the year. He enlightened us to the power of not only reporting …marks, grades, and percentages but also formally reporting effort. More on this later. This past week, as part of our orientation programme, new students met with their advisors – an adult mentor assigned to support them through their Brentwood career. This personalized approach is an important focus for us. During one meeting, a Grade 12 student, Patrick, spoke about our effort rating system – a system for teachers to assess a student's diligence. He used a phrase that caught my attention. He said, "At Brentwood, if you want a 4 or 5 (the top effort ratings) you have to GO ABOVE AND BEYOND".  It's the same phrase I used with our new faculty the week before. I want to hear from their Department Heads that they are GOING ABOVE AND BEYOND." It's something that I ask of us all. GO ABOVE AND BEYOND – to help a new student. GO ABOVE AND BEYOND – in your classes. GO ABOVE AND BEYOND – in your fine arts. GO ABOVE AND BEYOND – for your teammates. GO ABOVE AND BEYOND – for each other. That's the Brentwood way. Mr. Bud Patel, Head of School