Dear
Upper School Families,
It
is a pleasure to welcome you to the 2011-12 school year.
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Please access all
forms and documents by clicking the link corresponding to your son's grade on the right hand side of this page.
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Student
Class Schedules will be available on My Backpack August 23. You will
receive NEW login information and instructions when the Schedules
become available.
School
Website
Next week, will roll out the brand new Haverford School Website, which we believe is not only more visually
engaging, but also more user-friendly. We will continue to post electronic copies of grades and comments to My Backpack, which you will be able to access by logging into the website with the Username and Password that will be provided to you on Tuesday, August 23.
Books
Once again, the school will
provide many, but not all, of the books. Textbooks will be purchased by the
school and checked out to the boys by their teachers, with the expectation that
the books will be returned in reasonable shape.There are other books, primarily paperbacks and workbooks,
which need to be purchased by families. Lists of such materials are listed by
course in this electronic packet.You
should be able to procure the books you need at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble,
or directly from the publisher. Please begin this process ASAP – some books
may take some time to arrive.
III
Form Conrad Weiser Trip
Wednesday, Sept. 7 through Thursday,
Sept. 8.
Parents
of III Formers, please find trip details in the III
Form link. Please remember that all health forms and waivers must be
submitted by Sept. 7 in order for your son to participate in class
trips and/or athletics. (Visit our Health Services page
to download the required forms if you have not already returned them to the
School.)
Health and Medical Forms
I know that the process by which you have to submit
medical forms every year can seem cumbersome and that it is not always easy to
schedule appointments. I
occasionally have to be reminded of my parental responsibilities in this area
as well. Please know that it is essential
that we have all 3 required medical forms in by the beginning of the
school year in order for your son to participate in any school
programming.Understanding that
some of you are either unaware of what you are missing or have legitimate
reasons for not having done so, I thought I would tell you, with levity, that
one of our international students had all of his forms in by last April, and he
is from Moldova!Please make this
a priority in the coming month.
Exams
During
the 2011-12 school year, we will not be dedicating class time to mid-year
examinations.
The primary reason
for the change is that the previous structure disrupted curricular momentum;
just one week into a fresh chunk of time, our well-rested students and our
well-prepared teachers disengaged from the business of teaching and learning,
and the Upper School came to a standstill.
Mid-year examinations required between six and nine precious
teaching days from each class, days that could be better utilized in broader
and deeper pursuit of important curricular goals.
Our most valuable resource is our faculty and, whenever
possible, we want them working directly with your sons.
Department Chairs will work closely
with teachers to ensure that they are providing students with a variety of
evaluation formats throughout the year, including traditional cumulative
exam-like tests within the already existing eighty-five minute lab period.
Where appropriate, our teachers will give students opportunities to do the work
of a professional in that discipline (the kind of performance-, project-,
presentation-, and publication-based learning experiences that most closely
resemble the work we do in the “real world.”)
Moreover, we hope the additional student-teacher contact
time will enable our teachers to instruct students in the important skill of
writing lengthy research-based thesis papers, which so many of our graduates
report is an unexpected challenge of their college curricula.
So that students will have the
high-stakes, cumulative testing experiences some college courses still require,
we will dedicate time in June, as we always have, for final exams.
Handbooks
One of the side effects of moving toward paperless
communication is the sinking feeling that your audience may not be reading
quite as closely as they once did. Nowhere am I more uneasy about this
possibility then when it comes to the various school handbooks. This summer,
please read the Upper
School Student Handbook, the College Counseling Handbook, and the Honor Code
Handbook located on the right-hand column of this page. I won’t claim that any are beach-reading page-turners, but you can
learn so much about the policies and procedures that will govern your son’s
daily life in the Upper School. In particular, I direct your attention to the
Honor Code Handbook, which will give you further insight into our student-run
disciplinary system. I believe it is the strongest expression of our core values,
and while we spend a great deal of time educating the students on how it works,
we do not have the same opportunities with parents.
Finally,
please accept my thanks for sending your boys to Haverford. I strongly believe
in the school’s mission and in the people who enact it on a daily basis. The
enthusiasm and support of parents is no small part of that equation. See you in
September!
Sincerely
yours,
Matthew
Green
Head of Upper School