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It’s been a pleasure to welcome everyone to a new school year this week! Our returning and new students have begun with gusto and are getting settled with their teachers and classmates. Our classrooms are looking great – in fact the whole school is looking its very best for your children’s arrival. After a few years of dusty construction and renovation, it is the first September in a few years where we haven’t been working around the last minute touches of painters and plumbers. Our teachers have been in the school throughout the summer and we know that your students are going to benefit from all of their hard work.
As we launch 2023-2024, we remember that old adage of “beginning with the end in mind”. Establishing common sense routines and general expectations will be a major thrust of the first few weeks as we work to ensure that each student is able to make the best of his or her learning experience (…and your investment in their education!). We appreciate your help in working with teachers to support, encourage, and expect the best from your son or daughter.
During the school year, we will be prioritizing the implementation and activation of our refreshed and renewed mission for students at Matthews Hall. As many of you will remember, many months of effort were spent working to update and refine our school’s strategic goals to ensure that Miss Matthews’ School has a strong and purposeful future here in London. One of these steps has been the approval by our Board of Governors of a mission and vision re-boot for our 105 year-old school.
Very soon you will see our refreshed mission statement in classrooms and corridors as a reminder of our daily work with students. Our mission is the result of deep reflection, input and refinement from many people with a heart for children’s education. Our mission statement is the living work that will guide all of our daily decisions. Curriculum content, staff recruitment and retention, instructional practices, and student engagement programs will continue to align and grow from it. We trust that our stakeholders see that all of our decisions align with our school’s purpose.
So what is the statement that unifies us around the singular goal of offering our elementary students the best experience possible?
“To inspire academic excellence and a lifetime of joyful learning in the children we serve.” (MISSION)
And how will we accomplish this?…by prioritizing the following core values from the classroom to the boardroom: community, inclusion, resilience, integrity, respect and caring and wellbeing. (VALUES)
If we work toward these goals each month and year, we will create and sustain a place that is “recognized as the school of choice in southwestern Ontario offering the most trusted and balanced journey of academic, character, and leadership development to students at all levels.” (VISION)
A tall order for sure, but working together, we can ensure that every MH student enters high school prepared to tackle the future with confidence and character after their foundational elementary experience.
On behalf of the entire staff, thank you for entrusting your children to us for another fun-filled year.
Let us now begin together with the end in mind!
Ric Anderson, Head of School