Here’s the big question, why do you feel you are ready to advance to the next grade level? I don’t even want to think about grade 12… 

Here we go. Another SLC, I mean TPoL. I know this time of year you’re normally seeing an SLC blog post, but our teachers decided to change it up on us this year. Instead we are doing something similar, what they like to call, a TPoL. Better known as a Transitional Presentation of Learning. Basically we reflect on our learning, our growth, our strengths, work we’re proud of, work habits and responsibility. Although this time we are adding another aspect, why we feel we are ready to advance to the next grade level.

This question stumped me at first. I thought to myself, I don’t know why I’m ready, and honestly my first thought was, “well because I passed my courses”. But then after thinking about it some more it became pretty clear with me. All of the time, effort, skills I’ve developed have prepared me for the next year, my final year in high school.

Since PLP this year consisted of English and socials, as it does every year, I thought I would share how I’ve grown as a leaner in humanities. Over the past few months of third term I feel I have improved in every way, maybe not the quality of my work, but every other way. I’ve been more confident with my work and by that I mean I’m not afraid to ask for critique anymore. Before I was always nervous about asking my teachers or peers for critique for fear of being judged, now I grew some more confidence and have started accepting more critique and I realized how helpful it is. Also I feel I’ve been diving deeper into my critical thinking by spending my time researching more. As well as I’ve been paying more attention in class. Normally I kind of half listen and don’t really absorb much of the information, but recently I’ve been focusing more and trying my hardest to listen carefully to all the information being delivered.

As I say every time we have one of these, I plan to improve on my time management skills and handing everything in on time. This time around I actually made some progress. Throughout third term I have been handing in all of my work, seriously I don’t think my showbie has ever looked better. Normally I procrastinate everything until the last minute and sometimes I don’t even do it. Recently I have been planning out my time more efficiently due to the huge work load I have had near the end of the year. I don’t know why I didn’t start doing this earlier because it had helped me feel so much better and less stressed out. Although I have been handing everything in, it may not be my best work. That is something I hope and plan to improve on. I’ve got the timing down, now I just need to work on my quality of work. This last term has been one of my best for work ethic and work habits. Although there is always room for improvement on both of those. Maybe I can work on handing things in early next year! (Or maybe not, but one can always dream).

Teamwork. Probably one of my favourite and least favourite words associated with school. When I think of teamwork I think of all the difficult times we had while working on our Macbeth project, but I also think about the amazing teamwork we had while doing our winter Exhibition. This term we had a few chances to work in teams. For example we were put into teams based around lord of the flies. We were awarded and denoted points for work handed in, being on time, participation in class, all the basics of the classroom. This forced us to try extremely hard to be our best. I had to take on a responsibility for my team to make sure I was holding my own so I wouldn’t bring them down. This competition actually made me hand in all of my work on time, which almost never happens, however it wasn’t my best work. We worked hard in our teams for our debates. That was probably one of the best teams work wise this year. We collaborated well together and fought hard in our debates.

I’d say some of the work I’m most proud of this year would have to be the debate, althoughI I didn’t get the chance to talk during it, it was one of the projects I worked the hardest on. We spent so much time preparing our concepts and practicing rebuts. We were prepared and worked very well together.

Another project I’d say I’m most proud of is the concept blog post we recently completed. I spent a lot of time focusing on this one. Previously we had written concept paragraphs in class. Our task was to choose one of these and elaborate more on it in a blog post. I turned my paragraph into a somewhat essay and related two more topics to the concept. Then I created s visual to help the reader better understand the concept. Overall I feel I worked hard on this task and the product came out well.

Grade 12 is only in 2 months. Seems like a lot closer when you put it like that. Just thinking about it makes me nervous. Although I may not have thought I was prepared for this, I know I am. After all the hard work I’ve put in this year, not just in PLP, my growth in learning, my responsibility over my work, and most importantly I think, my procrastination. Next year is gonna be my last year of high school and I feel I have never been more ready for it to come.