Welcome teachers and parents! Grade 11 is officially over and isn’t that a weird thing to think about? Once again June has come and that means we are moving on to the next grade. So I’d like to take this moment to recap what I’ve accomplished this year and what I still need to improve on.

What am I proud of this year?

Our exhibition for Crazy people went really well. I was personally really happy with the way the night went because I was able to talk to a lot of people who knew what I was talking about. I felt that because we were talking to the locals it was much more of a two-way conversation rather than the one-way information dump it usually is. This made me realize that next year I would like to create more connections with how my topic can relate to or help the audience in order to prompt a conversation. I think it also helped that I chose a topic that I could both relate to and knew very well. Honestly, I was a little surprised as I was presenting because I hadn’t realized I was so passionate about acting. it wasn’t until the night of the exhibition when I started talking with people that I realized how much that personal connection bit had helped me. Talking with someone who is passionate about something is always very infectious and I could tell how people were also getting excited about my topic especially some kids who were interested in acting. 

What I think really helped me this year was the scholarship that I had won. It added a weight to what I was saying at the exhibition because I had proof that Chris Stanley really does inspire people because, well look at where it got me. It was also a confidence booster for the end of the year because it felt like I was finishing strong. It also helped that in our last project we were making a short film and so it was good timing for it. I also just added this in here but i was really proud of it and I wanted to brag a little. 

Both last year and at MPols I talked about how I wanted to improve my communication with my teachers. This would help both sides understand where I am at in my learning, what I could do more work on and so forth. I do feel like there were moments when I did this by checking in to see where my grade is, asking what I can do to do more, communicating when I needed extensions for things ahead of time. Being able to do this has definitely helped my work flow and allowed me to really think about my learning. This is definitely a skill that I will continue to use in life so I was very happy that this year there seemed to be a lot of improvement with it. I will continue to check in with teachers next year to have talks about where my grade is at and what I can do to Improve. This will be especially useful next year as grade 12 is when we are looking into post secondary and grades will impact where I go.

What can I improve on?

I feel like communication for me is one of those skills that I can both do really well on or not use at all. However improvement isn’t always a smooth climb so let’s break down why I could use some work in this.  As mentioned before I would like to continue my check-ins with teachers and have those talks about how I’m doing. I would also like to work on my communication with people outside of the school. Next year I am challenging myself to reach out farther than Deep Cove and try and contact a stranger who can help me with my project.

What do I think teachers and parents can do to help?

Like always, I ask for your continued support throughout my learning journey. Engaging in conversations about my learning will help me make connections and get a deeper understanding of what I am studying. You all have been incredible so far and I’d like to take this moment to acknowledge that and say thank you for all that you have done.