This is the time of year Grade 8 students start bringing home high school information packages as well as begin to pick their course selections for Grade 9.
At Winkler's Northlands Parkway Collegiate (NPC), getting students ready for the transition to high school begins prior to them entering secondary school and continues throughout their first year.
Two years ago, a number of new practices were implemented at NPC, aimed to improve the transition to high school for incoming grade 8 students. A 'Grade 9 mentor team,' was established, tapping into the school's students who just went through the process the year before to act as mentors to the new incoming Grade 9s.
Besides having the 'Grade 9 mentor team,' Vice-Principal Jeff Osinski says they also put together a staff mentor team. He notes they've always had staff doing mentorship, but that aspect is now a little bit different, with a different focus.
Between September and January of the new school year, Osinski says the staff mentor team conducts 6 sessions with the Grade 9 students to ensure they all hear how things work at the school.
"We spaced them (6 sessions) out about every two to three weeks, so that we're not overloading them, we're not pulling them from classes too often, but at the same time giving them information in a timely manner. When we're running these sessions, we're doing it with the goal in mind that, okay, exams are coming up, then we're going to run an exam preparation session or a stress reduction session with the students to get them prepared."
With registration coming up in March, a registration session is held in February where the staff mentor team talks to the Grade 9s about all of the options and all of their choices going into Grade 10. "And then we answer any questions that they have so that they're fully informed before they go and do their registration."
Another session involves introducing the students to Power School so they can look at their own grades and take a little bit of ownership in their education, Osinski added.
"We went over academic and study skills with them. We used My Blueprint. It's a job readiness program, basically students can go in and put in their goals and do a whole bunch of different surveys and inventories on themselves. Once they've done that, it starts to tell them what type of careers they'd probably be most suited to, and not only that, but it will also start linking them up with the actual post-secondary institutions in Canada that offer these programs."
Osinski says the My Blueprint program allows students to re-input information as they grow and change their minds throughout high school. "We wanted to make sure that the kids were fully integrated with My Blueprint, as we plan to use it for all four years of high school."
To have the kids learn more about themselves and how to deal with some of the stress and anxiety of testing situations, they also include a mental health workshop.