As we come to the end of term 1 next week, I hope this newsletter finds you well, making good progress in your learning and finding a rhythm to your school year with us.
As a full-time student high school student with EBUS, I will email you each a credit check detailing your progress in the graduation program showing the courses and required assessments completed, courses you are registered in and what remains to be complete to meet graduation requirements. I am most of the way through our grade 12s and will begin soon on the 11s and 10s, in order to ensure our students planning to graduate this year are all set with required courses. Watch for this important email in the coming weeks if you have not already received one.
2022-23 WELLNESS PROJECT
NOVEMBER PROJECT – RESILIENCE
Life is full of challenges – some easy to address and others that are hard. Each time you face a challenge and work to overcome it, you acquire a tool. EBUS encourages all students to check the Wellness project for November and see how you can build your resilience.
REQUIRED GRADUATION ASSESSMENTS
Students graduating under the 2018 graduation program will need to complete a total of 3 assessments to meet graduation requirements; Literacy 10, Numeracy and Literacy 12. These assessments must be written in person under the supervision of a teacher and are written in high schools across BC. EBUS will help our fulltime students find a seat a local high school for the January and June sessions.
Students need to complete these only one time.
For students looking to write in the January session, EBUS can help you find a school close by for you to write in. You can register for that at www.ebusgradassessment.weebly.com between October 4 and December 15.
You can get all the details at https://ebus.ca/welcome-package/grade-10-12-homeroomnews/graduation-assessments-provincial-exams/
For the required graduation numeracy and literacy assessments, all BC students will need government issue photo ID. A BCID card or a public school ID card will qualify. If you need a school ID card please send a current colour photo to Nikki at nvandolah@sd91.bc.ca well in advance of your assessment date.
REQUESTING COURSE CHANGES
For full time students wanting to change courses, please use the “drop course” button on your dashboard and email me your new request. Be sure to put the full student name and the specific course you are requesting, like English New Media 10. If you have courses on your dashboard, you should be handing in work in all of those courses regularly, or drop the course and we can add that later in the school year. The last day to request new courses is March 1.
PHONE APPOINTMENTS
For students and families looking to book an appointment with me, please visit https://tinyurl.com/yyrbnz7p and select the appropriate amount of time you need when you are available for my call.
REMEMBRANCE DAY VIRTUAL ASSEMBLY
We invite our fulltime families to join us in taking time to honour the sacrifices made for the freedoms we enjoy today. We encourage you all on Tuesday November 10 at 10:30AM Pacific to join our virtual Remembrance Day assembly at Click here to join the meeting
WHAT ABOUT?
To ensure our full-time high school students have all the information about EBUS Academy needed to be successful, our website contains lots of information vital to student success. In this section of our bi-weekly newsletter, we will highlight some of the elements of EBUS that we get lots of questions about.
Sooo…what about the ends of Terms?
Ministry of Education policy requires high schools to formally report out to parents 4 times a year. At the end of each term, a report card is produced showing the progress in the high school course as a percentage complete, a grade shown as a percentage, and any comments regarding student learning. The term deadline of November 10 is set as a guarantee date – any work submitted before that date will be marked and included in the term 1 report card. Work can be submitted November 13 and beyond, and we strongly encourage students to keep working, but that work may not be on your term 1 report card, a snapshot of learning accomplished and assessed by November 10.
If a student has a self-determined deadline of November 10 to finish a course and does not finish by that date, they just continue on until finished, no penalties or late marks taken off, no need to ask for an extension before the June deadlines. The final course completion will show up on the next report card. So in the end, take Dory’s advice from Finding Nemo and just keep working…just keep working 😊
MENTAL HEALTH MINUTE
It is quite common to hear from students and parents by this point in the year that there may be struggles noted – motivation may be a concern, the student might not be progressing as well as hoped, or with all that is going on in the world – an exceptionally stressful time – our mental health might not be where we’d like it. I hope by saying you are not alone in noticing this, you recognize many of us are struggling, but we are in this together. When we struggle, think about what is most helpful – kindness, noticing the positives and efforts made (even if they appear small), words of support, curiosity instead of judgement – these may be more important on that day than assignment completion. We are living in a very stressful world these days, and learning does not always happen in the ways we envision. If you want to talk further about this, do reach out, I have a mental health background and am not afraid of the sensitive conversations that sometimes need to happen.
UPCOMING IMPORTANT DATES
- Nov 10 Remembrance Day assembly 10:30M Click here to join the meeting
- Nov 10 end of Term 1 all work handed in on or before will be marked for report cards
- Nov 11 Remembrance Day – EBUS closed, courses open to students
- Nov 25 Report cards available
- Nov 25 Pro D – teachers unavailable, courses open to students
- Dec 8 Grades 10-12 assembly 11AM
- Dec 15 deadline to apply for January grad assessments at www.ebusgradassessment.weebly.com
- Dec 19-January 2 Winter Break, teachers unavailable, courses open to students
- Tuesday January 3 2023 EBUS reopens
- Jan 23-27 required grad assessments register before Dec 15
- Jan 27 end of Term 2 – all work handed in on or before will be marked for report cards
- Tuesday Feb 8 school assembly 10:30am
- Thursday Feb 10 report cards available
- March 1 deadline to request courses for this school year
- Note that Term end dates are guidelines for students to finish courses, if you do not finish by the November or January term end date you can continue with your studies without penalty. New courses are not automatically added at the Term change, students must request them as they finish current courses.
You can find the full year school calendar at
PARENT ACCESS
Parents, you can access your student’s progress and report cards on the EBUS parent portal: https://my.ebus.ca/parentportal/login.php We recommend parents log in with their student at least once a week to stay actively engaged in their learning and progress. Students, you can access your report cards from your dashboard; look for the A+ icon in the upper right hand corner. Report cards are published 5 times a year; November, January, March, June and for summer session courses only, September.
As I get asked this often, if your student plans to finish their course(s) in a quarterly fashion, meaning by the end of term 1 on Nov 10, they should be about 95%+ complete today. For a planned finish by the end of term 2 or semester 1 on January 27, students should be about 50%+ complete. And for students working in a linear fashion to complete by the June deadlines, they should be about 25%+ complete at this time.
Keep well, the next newsletter will be Friday November 18.