Monday, February 27, 2017

The Ultimate Warrior

An Introduction to ‘The Ultimate Warrior’

An educational system isn’t worth a great deal if it teaches young people how to make a living but doesn’t teach them how to make a life.  ~Author Unknown

On Monday, February 27, 2017 we introduced something called ‘The Ultimate Warrior’ to all of MMS. These are grade level values that we will expect all of our Warriors to live up to daily to become ‘The Ultimate Warrior’.


The core value for all grade 5 students is to be ‘BE READY TO LEARN’. We will talk with grade 5s about this in the coming weeks to determine what this exactly means at MMS. To me it means to come to school with an open mind, to try new things, have supplies, listen, and question and so much more. When talking with grade 5s we will focus the conversation on what it means to ‘be ready to learn’.

The core value of all grade 6s is to ‘BE READY TO HELP’. Since our grade 6s have been at MMS for a year they know the school expectations, rules, and the people. We will expect our grade 6s to help themselves, their classmates, their teachers and the environment in and around MMS. The grade 6 circle also includes the grade 5 value so this means our grade 6s will also be expected to be ‘ready to learn’. Again, we will speak with our grade 6s to come up with what this will look like at MMS.

The core value for our grade 7s is to ‘BE READY TO PARTICIPATE’. When our kids reach grade 7 a number of new opportunities open up. Grade 7s have more choice in their classes, athletics, arts and we will have a higher expectation for students to be active citizens in classrooms, school and community. Grade 7s will also be expected to ‘be ready to help’ and ‘be ready to learn’. Grade 7s will also be given the opportunity to help us define what this means at MMS.

Our last, and greatest responsibility lies with our grade 8s. Their value is ‘TO BE READY TO SERVE’. We will get our grade 8s feedback to what this will look like as well. The expectation will be for our grade 8s to serve our school, community locally and globally. Expectations for grade 8s will also include ‘be ready to participate’, ‘be ready to help’ and ‘be ready to learn’.

School culture is of utmost importance to me. If we can get our students, staff, and community to be using common language as the year goes along, we all grow. In ‘edu-speak’, this is a variation of a PBIS or Positive Behavioural Interventions and Supports. The goal is to get our entire school talking about what we should be doing and what we want to see rather on what we shouldn’t be doing.

This may change and evolve over time. The goal is to positively an already great school culture. By using common language and focusing on positive behaviour we will make sure that everyone associated with MMS has the best chance to learners and thrive everyday.