Highwood School

View Home page

Walk Zone Map: View Walk Zone Map
Email: highwood@cbe.ab.ca
Phone: (403) 777-6200
Fax: (403) 777-6202

School Hours: AM: 9:05 ~ 11:55 PM:12:45 ~ 3:32

School Location

11 Holmwood Avenue N.W.
Calgary , AB
T2K 2G5

Click on map to view full map.
(Flash player required)

Effective June 30, 2010 the Traditional Learning Centre (TLC) program at Highwood School will be closed for the purpose of relocation. This school will continue to provide French Immersion programming for Kindergarten to Grade 6 students.

Highwood School is a dual-track French Immersion / Traditional Learning Centre school (TLC is a temporary location projected to remain until end of 2009-’10 school year – new location proposed to be Dr. J.K.Mulloy). Communities designated to Highwood School (according to program) are highlighted as follows…

French Immersion Includes: Beddington Heights* Cambrian Heights Country Hills (south of golf course)* Greenview Highland Park Highwood Huntington Hills* MacEwan Glen* North Haven Queen’s Park Village Sandstone Valley Thorncliffe

Traditional Learning Centre Includes: Beddington Heights* Country Hills (south of golf course)* Evanston (includes Creekside) Hidden Valley Huntington Hills* Kincora MacEwan Glen* Sage Hill Sandstone Valley*

*indicates common communities for French Immersion and TLC

Students in French Immersion move on to Georges P.Vanier Junior High School (grades 7-9) and then William Aberhart High School. Students in TLC move to Balmoral School for grades 5-8 and then, Crescent Heights High School.

About the School

The school was built in 1965 and is situated on 1.8377 acres with a creative playground that was constructed in 2001. The school has 16 classrooms with a fully equipped bilingual library (media centre) with 25 Mac computers, 56 Mac computers throughout the school, 35 Windows computers (1 designated laptop for each teacher), a well equipped gymnasium (with no stage), with one classroom doubling as a music room.

About School Name

The school was named after the Highwood community.

School Mission

We are a community of learners consisting of our French Immersion / TLC parents, our staff, and other stakeholders in the greater community. Our vision is to encourage the active involvement of all in providing quality, focused learning experiences for our students that will enable them to succeed as participants in the global community.

Statement Of Purpose

Our purpose is to provide a healthy, secure, intellectually challenging environment where students can begin the pursuit of lifelong learning. Recognition of individual differences and the shared responsibility of students, parents, staff and community are integral in providing for success.

School Direction

Staff at Highwood continually review the demographic nature of our population and have determined that Highwood School can be characterized by:

Students who are generally motivated, well behaved and show good potential for learning.

A parent community which is involved in their children’s lives and supportive of the school.

A staff which has varying degrees of experience, who are caring and dedicated to their students and the school. In order to work together as a team to accomplish a common goal, we selected excellence as our school direction. Although we need to refine what we mean by excellence, this direction allows the flexibility for all constituents to strive for their best in a variety of ways, while still providing a focus for all stakeholders to work together. The following characteristics of excellence were agreed upon by teaching staff in the fall of 2008. The input of students, parents and support staff is ongoing work for the coming year.

Characteristics Of Excellence At Highwood

Students demonstrate positive affect, pride, and good self-esteem through confidence and risk taking; they add detail to revise and refine; they are highly engaged in doing their best and celebrating their accomplishments.

Excellence is an individualized academic, personal and/or interpersonal goal which our school and students strive to achieve using a variety of tools and strategies to analyze and synthesize raw data from the real world and extend concepts beyond what is given.

Students, parents and staff work together as a team by taking responsibility for learning and behavior in order to create a very positive and encouraging classroom and school environment.

Beliefs

In examining our beliefs, we discovered that there are a great many beliefs upon which we as a school staff agreed, and which were congruent with those of the Calgary Board of Education. However, in terms of providing useful guidance to our daily work, we decided to identify and make visible in our environment, those beliefs most likely to produce excellence.

Beliefs Likely To Produce Excellence

Believing that teachers and students are capable of achieving personal excellence with the support of the community of the school.

Believing that we may need to redefine excellence as circumstances change or vary for students, teachers and the school as a whole.

Believing that purposeful student engagement in learning is a key to excellence.

Believing that school should be a happy, safe and secure place; an environment of respect of self and others in order to become a collaborative team player and a productive citizen.

Believing that excellence can be attained by having a very positive and encouraging environment of love and caring both in the classroom and the school thereby promoting great self-esteem through confidence and risk taking.

Believing that excellence can be attained by diversifying and individualizing learning experiences with the help of self, peer and teacher assessment.

Believing that everyone has something important to contribute.

Believing that the quality of teaching affects the quality of learning.

Vision Statement

When asked to envision Highwood School as an ideal learning environment, teachers and support staff described the following scenario. Although the compilation of thoughts that follows is lengthy, it describes a learning environment to which we, as a team, aspire. This work is ongoing, as the voices of parents, community and students need to be included.

Culture: Clean, uncluttered, bright, shiny, kids’ work on walls, professional information readily available, new carpet and chairs, colour, lots of light, big plants, calm, relaxed people smiling and friendly, children in small groups walking to where they are going.

Entitlement: A big classroom with room for enough desks and space to walk around, shelves with all the materials students need at their level to reach, ready to use; computers, full class sets of books, loads of games, bulletin boards done up with student work and curriculum aids but not over-busy, posters and pictures, space for a reading corner, art corner and math / science corner, lots of current reading materials for all reading levels.

Security: Students are calm and polite, speak predominantly in French (French Immersion Program), enthusiastic and ready to learn, excited and talkative, taking turns, chatting, anxious to start their day, smiling and happy to be at school, an organised place for their things. They give the teacher their homework and do something quiet, playing together, reading the board to choose what to do, big eyes.

Teaching: Short explanation, then hands on activities, very active and energetic, using different tools, various work activities at various levels, some individual, some group work, a class working together to come up with a celebration of their knowledge, letters, words, centres, activities to expand for the advanced students, story writing about places far away where we would like to go, eagerness to know more, children pushing each other academically, working silently when they should be. Focused on integration of the arts into the curriculum. As with our TLC students, quality learning occurs when students find the work meaningful and thought provoking in a rich learning environment built on knowledge, virtues and critical thinking. Quality learning occurs through positive interpersonal relationships that include students, teachers, parents, and the community working together and responding to change. It occurs when instruction is direct, sequential, and enriched, built on a classical liberal arts education that provides in-depth coverage of the history, language and skills of a discipline. Quality learning occurs when teachers set high expectations for academic excellence and character development and model these outcomes in their planning, communication, evaluation, and feedback. Quality learning occurs when staff is committed to continuous learning within a community of learners through study groups, shared leadership, peer mentoring, and action-based research. Quality learning occurs when diversity is celebrated and common values are articulated in a virtues-oriented environment that encourages responsible citizenship and collaboration.

Achievement: Conversations on topic, all their eyes looking at me, students hurry to their task and get involved with lots of interest, students helping each other learn, their faces with a smile of confidence at what they are doing, students on task work diligently, cooperate, love to learn and are eager, doing their best work, independent with individualised goals, smiles, enjoying the unit and the activities, scores are high but there is room to grow, students ask thought provoking questions and others answer thoughtfully.

Entitlement: The teacher is beside the hard-to-reach student, down at his/her level, ready to help, concentrating on his/her needs. The teacher makes him/her see what s/he is capable of; s/he is finally enjoying him/herself while learning. The activities appeal to his/her interests; s/he has learned to rely more on him/herself and to do his/her best; s/he is a part of the class as a whole; s/he pauses frequently and perceives; s/he sees both sides of a problem and generates solutions.

Development:An influx of new resources for the school; people listening and showing their satisfaction with what is accomplished, positive discussions; smiles, camaraderie; continuity in literacy; a happy environment where parents are encouraged; teachers collaborating, sharing and proud of what they have done; coming to a common understanding of goals; everyone is supportive and feels a sense of accomplishment.

School Motto

Vivre c'est apprendre et grandir ensemble...vers l'excellence

Living is learning and growing together…towards excellence

Unique Points

Dual track French Immersion /Traditional Learning Centre program.
First French Immersion School in Alberta to be classified as a "Learning Through The Arts" school.
Strong academic focus - with fine arts integrated - involving peer tutoring, and performances.
Extensive physical education program taught by a specialist enriched through off-campus program (swimming, skating, skiing, and snowboarding) with an emphasis on daily physical education.
Technology is advancing well and has wireless capabilities. The library is equipped with automated checkout, has 25 computers wired to internet and computer networked so the staff and students can have access to their saved work from anywhere in the school. Our library is also equipped with a Smartboard, lap top, projector, TV/VCR/DVD player and a digital camera. Our school has approximately 56 Mac computers, 35 PC computers, 3 portable Smartboards with laptops for use in classrooms upstairs and on the main floor and 3 wall mounted Smartboards.
Volunteerism - over 200 parent/adult volunteers are involved annually.
Our school direction of excellence is based on recognition of the nature of our parents, staff and students. Parents are highly involved and supportive of the school, volunteering and running many events for students over the year. Staff is energetic, caring and experienced. Students are motivated, polite and hard working. From this base, we feel Highwood School can achieve excellence in all areas.