Counselor Weekly Newsletter

Every week, Mr. A-G, our High School Conselor, provides our High School students with a weekly update. This update provides students with information about a variety of topics including college and university application processes.

Quarter 3 Reports and Parent Teacher Conferences

Parent Teacher Conferences will be from 9 am to 5 pm on Thursday, April 27 in the ISY Gym. These conferences will be an opportunity to discuss your child’s Quarter 3 Report and general progress with their teachers. Students are encouraged to attend the conference with you.

Please follow these instructions to sign up for Parent Teacher Conferences on Powerschool. You will be able to sign up for conferences up until 12:00 pm on Wednesday, April 26. You will then receive an email from our School Office confirming your conference schedule.

If you need assistance with signing up for the conferences please do not hesitate to reach out to elementaryoffice@isyedu.org or secondaryoffice@isyedu.org.

Your child’s Quarter 3 Report is available on PowerSchool. The purpose of this report is to provide a summary of what has been covered in Quarter 3 and an indication of your child’s academic achievement at this point in time. 

Please take the time to review this report together with your child. If you have any questions relating to your child’s reports, please email your child’s teacher(s) for clarification. If you have any questions relating to the reporting process in general, you can contact Mr. Simpson on msimpson@isyedu.org. 

Accessing PowerSchool:

• Click the following link to access PowerSchool
• Enter your username
• Enter your password. If you have forgotten your username and password contact powerschool@isyedu.org for assistance.
• Click on the login button

Accessing your child’s Quarter 3 Report Card:

• Once you log in, you will see your child/children’s name on the left-hand side top of the screen along with the information of the student schedule. 
• Click on your child’s name 
• Click on the “Document” icon on the left side of the screen
• Student Documents box will appear on the screen
• Click on the file name “Q3 Report Card 22-23”

If you have difficulty accessing your child’s report, please know that you can contact the Secondary School office by email (secondaryoffice@isyedu.org) for assistance.

High School Final Exams: Why do we do them?

Our Grade 9, 10 and 11 students will sit Final Exams in May. 

Exams are one of many types of assessment that we use at ISY to develop a fair and accurate understanding of student academic achievement levels. 

For an assessment to be effective in helping us develop a fair and accurate understanding of what each student understands, we must be clear in our purpose for the assessment. Here are four reasons why students in Grades 9, 10, and 11 sit Final Exams at ISY:

1. Experience: Our Grade 12 students are about to sit their final IB Diploma exams. It is important that students feel confident and capable of showing what they know in an exam. To feel confident and capable in an exam, it is important for our students, with the support of their teachers, to experience exam conditions (no talking, sitting in rows, time limits, being supervised by a proctor, etc). With the support of their teachers, students will learn that they are able to show what they know in exam conditions. After the exams, teachers will help students reflect on their exam experience to develop more confidence and capability for next time.

2. Technique: Like sport or playing a musical instrument, good exam technique is very important for students to be able to show what they are capable of. Students also feel more confident going into an exam if they know they have good techniques to study for and sit exams. Our teachers have studied and will share with students the following proven study techniques summarized in this Strengthening the Student Toolbox article:

• Practice testing: self-testing or taking practice tests on material to be tested in the exam.
• Distributed practice: making a schedule of study that spreads out different subjects or study activities over time.
• Interleaved practice: making a schedule of study that mixes different kinds of problems or questions in one study session.
• Self-explanation: explaining to yourself (or another person) how to use what you know to answer a question or solve a problem.

Learning techniques like these will help students develop a study timetable that works for them. Teachers will also tell students what type of questions they can expect on the exams and share techniques that will help answer them.

3. Review: Exams provide an opportunity to review previously taught skills and knowledge that teachers have identified as important to consolidate for students to build on next year.

4. Data: To develop a fair and accurate assessment of a student’s academic achievement level, teachers use data from different assessments throughout the year. As students learn to sit exams, it is important for students to understand that a Final Exam is just one assessment that teachers gather data from to understand what their academic achievement level is. The grade on the Semester 2 report card comes from assessment data gathered throughout the year. A disappointing exam result at the end of the year does not cancel out what the student has proven they are capable of in earlier assessments. A High School Final Exam is in no way an ‘all or nothing’ assessment.

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