Private Schools Feb 2011

Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - North Shore News - A23

In 1919, after the devastation of the First World War, a visionary scientist named Dr. Rudolf Steiner was asked by a colleague, “What can we possibly do in our society to prevent a repeat of this most horrifi c event?” Dr. Steiner replied, “We need a new way of thinking.” This

conversation led to the development of the Waldorf curriculum. One of the ways Waldorf education develops this new way of thinking is through a curriculum that nurtures and develops not only the mind, but the whole human being.

At the Vancouver Waldorf School one of the fundamental educational tools we use to this effect is the arts, which develop esthetic awareness, creativity, social harmony, and emotional expression. Just as importantly, incorporating beauty and imagination throughout the curriculum fortifi es a deep comprehension and understanding of each subject. At the Vancouver Waldorf School, drawing and painting, handcrafts and practical arts, movement, speech, drama, playing musical instruments and singing are integrated throughout the curriculum. Waldorf education has been using the arts as a way of teaching for almost a century.

PRIVATE

SCHOOLS• LOCAL SCHOOLS AND

THE IMPORTANCE OF

THE ARTS

All you have to do is look around the foyer when you enter the doors of Lions Gate Christian Academy to see the value the arts hold here. In his book The Element, Sir Ken Robinson focuses on the importance of keeping creativity in our lives. We need to create environments — in our schools, in our workplaces, and in our public offi ces — where every person is inspired to grow creatively. Our belief is that we are created in God’s image; and He is a creative God. So we all have the ability to express our voice through fi ne arts. At LGCA, we want to discover and nurture the talents and gifts in each of our students. All the beautifully framed art in our foyer is the work of current and former students. Stroll down the halls and see creative inspiration on display. Fine arts are not limited to pictures hung on walls, though. Colourful stained-glass window art brought the spirit of Christmas to our building in December. The talents of a handful of creative students recently transformed our building to a warm, sunny beach for Hawaiian Day; a nice treat in the middle of a rainy winter! Fine arts come in many forms. Our annual Christmas musical is an adventure in music, drama and stage art. Because this is a school-wide production, it is also an opportunity for student leadership, mentorship and community building. Claymation is the medium of choice for student Michael Domisiw; once taught the basics, he has taken his love of claymation to a greater level. The entire student body enjoys watching the fi nished product during chapels and assemblies. Jonathan Danieli’s art refl ects his quirky sense of humor; he makes a statement with each drawing. Megan Harris’ lion mascot done through a taping/painting technique refl ects our energetic school spirit.

Our band program is growing and adding an element to Lions Gate Christian Academy that is a lifelong skill, and unique in a Christian setting are student worship teams who lead in singing and playing in our weekly chapels. We believe all students are creative and must have an expressive voice. We know our students, we love them and we teach them. At the end of the day, they also teach us through their creativity in the arts.

Waldorf School Grade 1 students Ella Fortin (left), Asha Findlay and Leah Read learn the art of knitting.

Student Megan Harris works on “tape art” with instructor Amy Wilson.

Lions Gate Christian AcademyThe Vancouver Waldorf School

NEWS photo Mike Wakefi eldNEWS photo Mike Wakefi eld

A24 - North Shore News - Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Education As Unique as Your Child

Call to book an appointment for a personal tour!

1325 East Keith Road, North Vancouverlocated at the southern annex of the North Shore Winter Club

www.brocktonschool.com

A non-denominational, co-ed independent Kindergarten to Grade 9 school

604-929-9201 | 3467 Duval Road, North Vancouver

Dream… Ach ieve !

OPEN HOUSE

April 8th, Friday

2pm - 5pm

Meet the Teachers

Tour the School

PRIVATE SCHOOLS

By Isaac Renert (Grade 6)Wednesday is my favorite

day of the week. This is because we get to spend the whole afternoon working on art at my school, North Star Montessori.

Please don’t get me wrong. Wednesday is not the only day on which we do art. Drawing, sculpture, crafts, music and drama are part of almost every project on which my classmates and I work. For example, this week, while learning about levers and pulleys, we created model ziplines. Some of my friends worked on an architecture project in which they built houses, both in modernist and postmodernist styles. Other classmates built busts of mummies when they studied ancient Egypt. And others created artistic cake decorations when they studied the history of baking and famous chefs.

My classroom teacher encourages me to include art in my presentations. When I was studying the Phoenicians, I created a tea-stained scroll that looked very authentic. When I learned about the structure of the atom, I built sample atoms from clay. I am currently working on a report about electronic music. While studying the

history of electronica, I have also been using the software Garage Band to compose my own music sample. The school’s Winter Concert brings together many performing arts. The teachers allow us a lot of creative freedom. For this year’s concert, my friends and I wrote our own comedy skit. It was a hilarious game show called You Can’t Win! Last year, we choreographed a brand new hip-hop dance. The music came from a CD that we listened to in French class.

So why is Wednesday special? It’s when the whole afternoon is one long art class with an art teacher who is an accomplished artist herself. There is nothing like learning about art from a practicing artist. There is no limitation to the creative ideas that emerge. We are allowed to talk about anything among ourselves while we work. The

environment is very peaceful, and our art teacher encourages imagination and new ideas.

We are currently working on marionettes and are having a great time imagining how our characters will turn out. Each of us was free to choose the character that he or she would build. I chose one of my all-time favourite characters – Ramona Flowers from Scott Pilgrim. We build the marionettes from felt and Fimo, a special type of artistic clay. We are learning the different steps required to build life-like marionettes. We will later use the marionettes in a play that we will write.

Sometimes it feels like North Star Montessori is an art school. But really, it’s just a well-rounded school that includes arts in every aspect of school work. Shouldn’t the arts be treated like this everywhere?

North Star Montessori students work in the arts all week.

North Star Montessori

NEWS photo Mike Wakefi eld

Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - North Shore News - A25

Students who develop the capacity for creative problem solving,

high levels of social and emotional intelligence, healthy self-

awareness and a global and environmental consciousness will be

most prepared to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

Discover how Waldorf Education does all of this and more!

Grade SchoolEarly Childhood High School

Waldorf Education WWaldorf Education

www.vws.ca

March 16, 8:45a604.985.7435 x 200Waldorf Welcome Information Session

March 7, 7:00pHigh School Open House

MULGRAVESCHOOL

www.mulgrave.com2330 Cypress Bowl Lane West Vancouver, BC V7S 3H9

For more informationcall: 604-913-6018 or email: [email protected]

Inspiring excellence ineducation and life

Mulgrave is a co-ed International Baccalau- reate (IB) World School. We offer Pre-K to Grade 12 programmes in a spectacular West Vancouver setting.The IB is one of the most highly acclaimed approaches to education in the world, providing children with outstanding preparation for personal and academic achievement in the 21st century. Our graduates go on to study at top universities worldwide.

The Mulgrave difference: Small class sizes French and Mandarin Pre-K to 12 Laptop Programme Grades 6 to 12 Over 20 co-curricular clubs in the Junior School

Robust Sports & Fine Arts Programmes Global Outreach

Apply now for September, 2011. In particular, we welcome applications for Grades 1 and 3, where we are adding extra classes.

PRIVATE SCHOOLS

Forget Grease, Bye Bye Birdie and High School Musical. This spring, West Vancouver’s Mulgrave School is putting on a show like you’ve never seen before . . . literally.

Musical theatre students and staff are collaborating with Danny Balkwill, Dean Balkwill and Craig Salkeld (professional performers, writers and musicians whose credits include Mirvish Theatres’ The Lion King and We Will Rock You, national tours of Tommy and Mamma Mia, and the Broadway production of Rent) to develop and perform a completely original musical. The title: Cyberlife.

Cyberlife tells the story of students at a high school who discover an online virtual world where users are able to create “avatars” of themselves and interact anonymously with others. As the students get more and more involved in Cyberlife, the ability to be whoever they want online starts to make things complicated in the real world.

“At fi rst I was scared as to how the play was going to turn out,” says Grade 11 cast member, Nicole Moller, “but I think it’s amazing how Danny, Dean and Craig managed to bring everyone’s ideas together.” Cyberlife is currently in rehearsal, and will open on April 6. The collective creation and rehearsal process has instilled a great sense of student pride and ownership in the production. “It has brought each and every person’s ideas together into a very unique show that involves real issues current to our age group,” says Grade 7 student, Chelsea Henry.

Cyberlife is just one example of the many programs offered by the school’s arts department. At Mulgrave, a Pre-K to 12 International Baccalaureate World School in West Vancouver, the arts are a core component of the academic and extra-curricular program. By helping students explore, shape and communicate their sense of identity and understanding of the world,

the arts department provides opportunities for students to develop self-confi dence, resilience and adaptability in a range of comprehensive programs, including Music, Theatre Arts, Choir, Vocal Ensembles, Band, Film and Visual Arts.

According to Arts Department head Donna Sheh, “The arts play an essential and meaningful part in a child’s education. Looking back on one’s years in school, you remember the characters you played, the songs you sang, the feeling of the music you played in band, the drawing you brought to life, the dances you did and the fi lms you shot and watched – each memory evokes rich and powerful experiences. ”

Tickets for Cyberlife will be available to the public in March. Please visit www.mulgrave.com for details.

Mulgrave students rehearse for Cyberlife: The Musical.

Mulgrave School

NEWS photo Paul McGrath

A26 - North Shore News - Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Pursue your

with us!Passion

Our High Performance Learners program is for you: the aspiring artist, dancer or athlete.

Individually customized timetables allow you to pursue your passion and keep you on track to be fully prepared for successful post-secondary studies.

For more information on ourHigh Performance Learners program please contact our Director of Admissionsat 604-925-3016 or visitwww.collingwood.org

PRIVATE SCHOOLS

Fashion shows, fl ash mobs, coffeehouses, culinary arts, school wide guitar jams, and a Musical composed and performed by students — these are some of the ways that Island Pacifi c School (IPS) youth get to express themselves.

Island Pacifi c School, a 20-minute ferry ride from Horseshoe Bay on Bowen Island, is an IB World School with 45 students in grades 6 to 9. Youth from Bowen, the North Shore and the Sea to Sky corridor attend IPS in day and home-stay programs. This unique middle school boasts an extraordinary level of student-teacher engagement. The tight learning relationships coupled with the school’s “inquiry-based” approach makes IPS a hyper-creative environment.

“IPS students are confi dent, skilled, and comfortable engaging with and producing original and beautiful works of art,” says Tania Krumpak, interim Head of School at IPS.

The Twin Project is an excellent example of the school’s multidisciplinary and collaborative approach. Grade 8 students start by choosing a classical or modern portrait that they resemble. The goal is to reproduce the portrait in a photograph. Each student must pose as the subject. Life-size backgrounds are sketched and painted, costumes are designed and sewn, makeup and hair is modeled. That’s when Robert Semeniuk jumps in. He is a Bowen-based international photojournalist and human rights activist who volunteers at IPS. Robert teaches photography and literally calls the shots.

Once the photo prints are framed and hung in gallery style, the community is invited to an open, interactive exhibit. Students greet their visitors in full costume and answer questions about the style, composition and historical signifi cance. They must stay in character all the while. The Twin Project is an art history, painting, staging, photography, performance and social studies lesson all in one.

Island Pacifi c School’s arts initiatives are also matched with a rich excursion program. Students venture to Vancouver to attend theatrical and musical performances, art galleries, museums, and writers’ festivals. “We have a strong focus on imagination, creativity, and self expression at IPS. We can see each student for who they truly are because of our size. Individuality is really embraced here. Community service and responsibility are required,” says Krumpak.

Next year the school’s founder, Ted Spear, will be returning to the helm after several years as Middle School principal at Mulgrave School and as the founding principal of Dwight International School on Vancouver Island. Perhaps Dr. Spear puts it best: “The central purpose of Island Pacifi cSchool is to equip and inspire students to cultivatetheir humanity. We want the arts to be a centralelement of our school because we believe that children are not whole unless they participate in some form of esthetic expression. There is a resonance in the arts that must be experienced.”

Island Pacifi c School

photo submitted

Alexander Bingham plays original music at IPS Coffeehouse.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011 - North Shore News - A27

Bodwell High School & Academy

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A28 - North Shore News - Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Walk into Brockton School any Thursday afternoon and you will instantly feel the essence of creativity oozing from the walls around you. Thursday afternoons are when Brockton students engage in Discovery programs, many of which have an arts focus. While all Brockton students from Kindergarten through the high school years take regular classes in music and art from educators who are active musicians and artists themselves, they also have an opportunity to explore the arts in more depth through Discovery courses in the Middle Years Programme or Exploration in the Primary Years Programme.

Brockton School’s Marimba Band is developing into a musical force to be reckoned with. Led by professional musicians and educators Paige Freeborn and Adrian Dyck, this group of students, ranging in ages from grades 6 to 9, are preparing for a number of open air performances this spring. The sound created by these traditional wooden African marimbas is almost otherwordly.

Walk into Laura Masi’s art room at Brockton and you will be happily assaulted by a riot of colour and texture all around. However, art is never meant to be contained. Walk down any hallway at this school and you will see art bursting from every wall. Brockton School is populated by artists of all ages and sizes and the school is their gallery. Currently a number of children from grades 5 to 9 are engaged in their fi rst exploration with Darkroom Photography. Thanks to the wonderful skills of a Brockton parent, a little-used storage room has been converted to a functioning darkroom where the mysteries of fi lm are being explored. An exhibition of black and white photography is soon to be unveiled!

As an International Baccalaureate school, Brockton takes seriously the imperative to provide a balanced curriculum that values an education in the arts. The concept of providing an education in the arts is not viewed as a requirement to be fulfi lled but as a living, breathing, evolving and ever developing component of the lifeblood of the school.

Bodwell students are hard at work, preparing to participate in “Big Ideas: Responding to Public Art.” A joint project of the Vancouver International Sculptural Biennale and the North Vancouver Community Arts Council, it will see high school students from North Vancouver use the “Big Ideas” embodied in the Biennale Sculptures installed around Vancouver to create new art works from a variety of mediums. Grade 11 Studio Art student Domenica Diaz Hernandez was inspired by the sculpture Engagement by Dennis Oppenheim. Her piece, Trust, is painted with pastels and follows similar themes of love, trust, and friendship in relationships. Follow the students’ creative journey to understand the Biennale Sculptures and create their own unique artwork at bodwellstudioart.blogspot.com. The Exhibition for artwork produced by Bodwell High School, as well as other North Shore students, will be held at the CityScape Community Art Space, 335 Lonsdale Ave. from April 8-23, 2011.

Marieke Maas, also in Grade 11, recently produced a ceramic sculpture called Man vs. Bear and the need for safety in Jeri Canderan’s Studio Art class, which focused on “habitat” sculptures from clay using hand building techniques. Marieke’s sculpture was displayed at Bodwell High School’s own Art Exhibition.

The two large canvases outside Bodwell High School were completed in the Fall of 2010 by students from Marta Chojnacka’s Advanced Placement Art Class. They are titled Vancouver and its Cultural Background and View from Londsdale Quay. These two paintings were done in oil on canvas. The main concept behind these two images was to express Canadian Culture.

At right, Bodwell teacher Jeri Canderan works with Domenica Diaz and Marieke Maas.

Nick Fitzpatrick rehearses Coldplay’s Viva La Vida on the marimba.

At a school that stresses high academic achievement you might be surprised to see the work of prolifi c young artists and performers everywhere at Collingwood. The halls are lined with student paintings and photographs and cases are fi lled with sculpture. Walk past the choir room and hear the harmonies of the Vocal Jazz Ensemble or the sounds of the full orchestra class handily tackling a challenging arrangement.

Collingwood’s four-stranded educational approach is that every student is encouraged and expected to excel in academics, but also to enrich their education by participating in athletics, service and the arts. Opportunities for artistic expression are abundant for every student, beginning in Junior Kindergarten and expand all the way through their Grade 12 year.

Many schools today are not able to support arts education in a signifi cant way, but this is not the case at Collingwood, where the arts program is carefully coordinated, sequential and comprehensive for all grades. The arts team is comprised of teachers dedicated to teaching their particular area of expertise, whether it be music, visual arts, theatre or dance.

The theatre program offers extraordinary opportunities for Middle and Senior School students to appear in three large scale, professional quality productions per year, often produced using skilled costumers and set designers active in Vancouver’s

theatre scene. The dance program includes instruction in jazz, hip hop and contemporary disciplines plus opportunities to perform and choreograph in shows throughout the year.

The Visual Arts program features studio art, digital photography, graphic design and several advanced placement courses at the Senior level, including Art History. At the Junior School, young musicians enjoy classes in the new Telfer Family Wing, where students participate in band, choir and strings in two large and airy dedicated music rooms. At the Senior School, aspiring musicians enjoy not only band and choir, but can play in an actual orchestra, sing a capella with a small vocal ensemble or play in the Jazz Combo.

When arts team teachers were asked why they choose to work at Collingwood, the response was unanimous: arts education is treated as a viable, important and necessary subject. Teachers feel supported by the school’s administration with respect to resources and are bolstered by the resounding support they receive from parents. This adds up to a focused and encouraging environment for young actors, dancers, artists and musicians to explore, learn and pursue their artistic passion.

“It’s not a one-dimensional life at this school,” says David Buchan, head of the Music Department. “It is a vibrant artistic community.”

PRIVATE SCHOOLS

Bodwell High School

Collingwood SchoolBrockton School

NEWS photo Mike Wakefi eld

NEWS photo Mike Wakefi eld

View from

Lonsdale Quay.

Vancouver and

its Cultural

Background