Text Box: Principal’s Message Text Box: Cedar Community Secondary News Text Box: 1640 MacMillan Road Nanaimo, B.C. V9X 1L9 Tel: 722-2414 Fax: 722-3071 http:\\schools.sd68.bc.ca/ceds Text Box: Susann Young, Principal Bill Rounis, Vice Principal JANUARY 12, 2011 Text Box: Dear parents, community members and students, Happy New Year everyone! As you can imagine, the focus of this month will be on finishing up course work and writing exams as we come to the end of the first semester. Exam week is from January 24th to January 28th. Completion school runs from January 24th to the 26th. Teachers will be assigning students to Completion School if they are close to passing (between 40 and 49%). Students and parents will be informed if a student is recommended to Completion School, and the student will be expected to be in attendance until the assigned work is completed. This time of the year we also ask students to return textbooks from this semester. Because these resources are expensive and are needed by other students, we have had to implement a textbook return policy. Students and parents will be notified of missing textbooks during exam week. Efforts must be made to return the missing resource or make a plan for payment before the student receives their textbooks for the second semester. We appreciate your assistance in this matter. Spartans continue to represent our school very well! Our volleyball and soccer seasons are over and basketball is well underway. Many thanks go out to all the coaches, sponsors and supporters of these programs. Without the hours of volunteer time, these activities would not take place. Also, we have many students who quietly go about their business every day and are accomplishing big things in the school and in the community. We honor those who do their best on a daily basis and wish them continued success! Good luck to all students on the completion of their courses for Semester 1. Yours sincerely, Susann Young Principal Text Box: Wed, Jan 12 Newsletter out Wed, Jan 19 PAC Mtg. @ 7 pm Fri, Jan 21 Last Day of Semester 1 Jan 24—28 School Exams (see last page-schedule) Mon, Jan 31 Semester 2 Begins Thurs, Feb 9 Report Cards Out Newsletter out Tues, Feb 15 School Wide Ski Trip Wed, Feb 16 PAC Mtg @ 7 pm Mon, Feb 21 District Pro-D Day Tues, Feb 22 School Pro-D Day Wed, Mar 2 Interim Day Newsletter out Thurs, Mar 3 Grad Fashion Show @ 7 pm Fri, Mar 11 Last day of classes before Spring Break Mar 12 - 27 Spring Break Mon, Mar 28 First day of classes after break Wed, Apr 6 Newsletter out Mon, April 18 Pro D Day Fri, April 22 Good Friday Mon, April 25 Easter Monday Text Box: Dates to Note Text Box: Mr. Rounis—Vice Principal Exam Preparation: I hope that some of this information will not only be useful, but also will help bring some focus to the topic as we get close to the end of the semester. To start with, it is important to realize how each of us learns and what people and tools are available to us. The visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners should incorporate these methods into their study habits. The visual learner can use pictures, roadmaps and flashcards on top of their notes. The auditory learner should dictate to a recording devise the most important information and have that play back a few times. The kinesthetic learner should make sure that they’ve gone through and created their own summaries of sections and possible recreated or relived any labs or concepts. I believe that if students had a copy of the exam questions prior to writing they would likely score higher than not. Most of my own time preparing for exams was always centered around asking the question, What would my teacher be asking on this exam?” In the last week of classes often teachers provide students with review classes and packages they contain exactly that! My advice is to make up your own exam questions and answer them. When it comes to the Provincial Exams this has been already done for you as you can find electronic copies of previous exams online: http://wwwbced.gov.bc.ca/exams/under the E-exam section. The final area to consider is how students are studying. Students often tell me that they need music or TV to focus, but unless it’s just background noise it is a distraction. The other thing to look at is all the other “attention grabbers” around such as how much time in the study room was used by watching TV, internet browsing, or answering text and e-mail messages. So when a student tells me that they have studied all night for the exam I first ask what else were you doing? There is a limit to how much time in a row a person can study. Quality focused studying will not only sharpen retention, but it will also make for a shorter session. I wish all of you good luck on your exams and the final part of your courses. Make sure that you’ve taken note of when and where you are being asked to write. Come prepared with pencils, pens, etc.

“CEDAR:  WE’RE IN IT TO LEARN!”