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 14, 2010 Text Box: Dear parents, community members and students, Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful, relaxing holiday break! 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. These exams are worth varying amounts and we encourage students to know what their standing is going into the exams, and what the final exam is worth—many teachers put this information on their course outlines. Students taking grade 10 courses in Math, English and Science and students taking Social Studies 11 will be writing provincial exams worth 20%. The provincial exam for Grade 12 English or Communications is worth 40%. In addition, students may write provincial exams for Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Math, Geography and History 12. If students opt out of these provincial exams, their class mark will count for 100%. Students who have fallen behind will have one last opportunity to get caught up at Completion School. They will be expected to come to the library with their work during exam week. In the last few years, we have noticed an increase in missing textbooks. 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. On another topic, our three-on three basketball intramural activity finished with our congratulations (and winner t-shirts) going to Cathy Schluter, Megan Cawthorne, and Mr. Hart! Our intramural floor hockey season is well underway. We have a couple of playoff games left to determine the “champions” though I have to say all the students and staff who participate are champions! Our thanks go out to our leadership students: Colby Morgan, Harold Paule, Bradley Putz and Kyle Wolfe, for organizing our intramurals and involving so many students and staff in an active lunch hour! 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 wouldn’t take place. I am looking forward to seeing a number of you at our fashion show on February 11th and our fun fair coming up on February the 19th! Yours sincerely, Mrs. Young Text Box: Thursday, Jan 14 Newsletter out Friday, Jan 15 “Wear Your Jersey” Day Friday, Jan 22 Last day of Semester 1 -Last day for marks cut off -”Tacky Shirt Day/Tie Day” Jan 25—29 Exams (see attached) Tuesday, Jan 26 PAC Mtg. @ 7 pm Monday, Feb 1 Semester 2 begins Tuesday, Feb 9 Ski Trip Thursday, Feb 11 Report Cards out (3:15 pm) -Newsletter out -Grad Fashion show Friday, Feb. 19 Fun Fair Monday, Feb 22 District Pro D Day Tuesday, Feb 23 School Pro D Day -PAC Mtg. @ 7 pm Thursday, Mar 4 Interim Day -Newsletter out Friday, Mar 5 Last day of school before Spring break Mar 8-12 Spring break Monday, Mar 15 School in session after Spring break Tuesday, Mar 30 PAC mgt. @ 7 pm Text Box: Dates to Note Text Box: Preparing for Final Exams—Mr. Rounis 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 also incorporate these methods into our 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 test”? In the last week of classes often instructors provide students with review classes and packages that contain exactly that. My advice is to make up your own exam questions and answer them. When it comes to Provincial Exams this has been already done for you as you can find electronic copies of previous exams online: http://www/bced.gov.bc.ca/exams/ under the E-Exam section. The final area that I have is the notion of 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 all the other “attention grabbers” around such as how much time in the study room was used up 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 your 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 your exam. Come prepared with pencils, pens, etc.

“CEDAR:  WE’RE IN IT TO LEARN!”