Senior School Graduation - Principal's Address

Mr. Ayotte, Governors and Trustees, Honoured Guests, Faculty, Staff, Parents, Students, Graduates of 2011, and Friends of the College, good morning and thank you for joining us today to celebrate this very special HSC event.

Each year at Closing Ceremonies, we have the opportunity to reflect back upon the past school year, and to remember the many successes and achievements that have taken place over the past eight months.

And while I know that each and every student here today will be focused on how he or she has performed individually this year, I felt that it would be an interesting exercise for me to share with you my reflections as to how we, the Senior School, did with collectively meeting our annual goals.

As a Senior School, our goals flow from the fact that we are charged with upholding the mission, vision, and values of the College. As you know, these guiding principles embody: a focus on academic excellence; seek to ensure the development of the whole child through a broad range of educational experiences; and aim to create service-minded students who possess the leadership and initiative needed to improve the world around them.

Reflecting back upon our goal of “academic excellence”, the following achievements come to mind...

The fact that the Senior School can proudly boast that every one of our graduates who applied for post-secondary education has been successful in receiving an offer of admission to one or more of their programs. In addition, scholarships in excess of a quarter million dollars have been offered to our graduates in recognition of their incredible achievements in high school.

Today, an impressive 55% of the student body will be recognized for earning an overall final academic average of 85% or greater – and 95 members of our graduating class have been recognized by the province for being an Ontario Scholar. Academically, the Senior School has never performed better.

At this year’s Bay Area Science and Engineering Fair, HSC was once again recognized for its excellence in science within the Hamilton-Niagara region. An HSC student earned the Best Project at Fair award and three of our students were chosen to represent this region at either the Canada-wide Science Fair or the International Science Fair which took place in Los Angeles.

This past year, our students also earned exceptional results in provincial and national scholastic competitions in French, Spanish, mathematics, chemistry, biology and computer science.

Finally, our level of student participation in the Advanced Placement program has remained strong, as approximately 40% of our senior students elected to stretch their learning by studying curricula that are equated with first year university course material. While the AP exam results will not be released until early July, the College is anticipating that we will be adding over a dozen students to our growing list of AP Scholars and AP National Scholars this year.

Reflecting back upon our goal of “developing the whole child”...

At a time when the enrolment in high school arts programs is sadly lacking, it is impressive to note that over half of HSC’s Senior School students elect to enrol in music, drama, and visual arts courses beyond the Grade 9 level. This is a testament to the high quality arts programs offered at the College, and a clear sign that the arts are thriving in Senior School.

Our music program at the College continues to gain regional and provincial recognition. This past February, the Senior Jazz Ensemble, the Wind Symphony, and the Grade 9 Concert Band were awarded gold and silver standards for their outstanding performances at the Golden Horseshoe Music Festival. In April, our vocal ensemble was invited to attend the American National Youth Choir Festival in New York City and performed beautifully for adjudicators in Carnegie Hall. This past May, the HSC Senior Jazz Ensemble and the Wind Symphony travelled to Vancouver to take part in the National Musicfest Finals. With over 10,000 elite musicians involved in these finals, HSC should be very proud of its silver award at the Nationals and also because our Jazz Drummer was individually recognized for his outstanding musical talent and abilities at this event.

Our fall musical, “42nd Street”, earned rave reviews for its stellar vocals, authentic costuming, and impressive dance routines. In the spring, a talented cast of students entertained us with their humour and the twisted antics of Neil Simon’s dramatic production, “Rumours”.

Our Visual and Media Arts programs can take great pride in the student work that has been created and shared with the HSC community via the Monday Memo, student art galleries and, most recently, in the 44th edition of the College’s Yearbook. Kudos to the Grade 12 Comm Tech class for their outstanding work in putting together an award-winning yearbook – it is a true masterpiece and something that the HSC students will treasure for years to come.

On the athletics front, the number and variety of competitive athletic opportunities for our students continues to grow and evolve in Senior School, to the point where we now have 29 varsity sports programs for our students to select from.

While it is not always about the hardware, eight different Senior School teams earned CIS, CAIS, or OFSAA recognition for their tenacity and performance in interschool varsity athletics.

Student participation in the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award program continues to grow, and an ever-increasing percentage of our students are successfully completing their Bronze, Silver, and Gold Pins.

Through co-curricular programs such as Reach for the Top and Model UN, our students honed their analytical skills and became comfortable with public and persuasive speaking. The HSC Intermediate Reach Team placed second in Hamilton this past year, and five of our Model UN group’s most seasoned delegates earned special recognition awards at the Model United Nations Symposium in Montreal in November.

Reflecting on our goal to “create global leaders and caring citizens through service”...

Through the efforts of the Colin B. Glassco Foundation Ccommittee, our students put on the Peace, Love, and Fashion Show – a wonderful community event that was aimed at raising funds to support an orphanage in Zambia, as well as to provide financial assistance to the Pinky Lewis Centre and the Weaver Hub in downtown Hamilton. The event raised over $16,000 dollars for these causes and, in doing so, brought the total amount of money raised by the group to over $50, 000 in four years. This money has provided some 200,000 meals for the orphans in Zambia and facilitated the drilling of two water wells in this impoverished area.

Each week during the school year, Senior School students travel into the downtown Hamilton area to take part in the English Conversation Circle project. Our students committed their time and talent to the ECC in order to help newly arrived immigrants to this region learn about Canadian life and to assist them with their language acquisition.

The Me 2 We and World Vision Service Groups also provided additional opportunities for our students to engage as global citizens and be better attuned to the harsh realities that face so much of our world’s population.

Our Best Buddies program had another very successful year, connecting our students with local youth who live with intellectual disabilities. Running activity programs, promoting equality, and building fellowship, formed the heart of what this group of students gave back through service.

Finally, the Senior School was extremely proud to have two of its students receive special recognition at the Hamilton Spectator Youth Volunteer Awards Ceremony for their extraordinary service and volunteer efforts, both within the local community and abroad.

So, when I reflect back upon this past school year, and align our accomplishments as a Senior School with our goals, it brings me great pride and satisfaction to see that we hit the vast majority of our targets and, in many ways, earned unprecedented recognition in doing so. What makes me even prouder is the fact that the credit for all of these accomplishments lies squarely with the students. While the College is blessed to have a wonderful faculty who motivate, encourage, and support their students, it brings me great delight as an educator to watch you, the students, use your creative talents and energies as you tackle your initiatives and strive to truly make the world around you a better place.

Congratulations on a great year, Senior School.

Senior School Graduation 2011 - Head of College’s Address

Mr. Philp, Mr. Simpson, Ms. Ormond, Ms. Smith ,Governors and Trustees, faculty and staff, parents and other family members, graduates, students - good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Senior School’s Closing Ceremony, celebrating the 110th year in the history of Hillfield Strathallan College and honouring our prize winners and graduates for 2011.

On behalf of Mr. Neibert and my Senior School colleagues, I would like to begin by expressing my gratitude to all of the parents and guardians who have joined us for this important occasion.

I sincerely hope that you have had a good year, and that you and your children have felt well supported as you have experienced the challenges and joys of yet another school year.

This is, of course, an especially emotional time for the parents of our graduating students. Thank you for joining us on what has been, for most of you, a long and eventful journey. Your commitment, your support of your children, and the trust that you have placed in the College are greatly appreciated.

Thank you, students and faculty, for a memorable year. We have enjoyed much success, which Mr. Neibert will outline more fully in his address and I’m sure that you will join me in my amazement of all that can be accomplished when our HSC students put their minds to it.

As the Senior School has grown and stretched the limits of our existing physical space, I have been particularly impressed by the positive energy pervading the Senior School this year. Our program offers a wide range of opportunities, but our students have made the concerted effort to embrace these opportunities or, more often than not, create their own.

Similarly, I am deeply appreciative of the efforts of the faculty and staff of the Senior School. This is the fourth independent school that I have worked in and I can honestly say that I haven’t worked with a more professional or committed group as the one that we have here at HSC. The depth and quality of our academic and co-curricular programs is a direct consequence of their passion, commitment and expertise.

Finally, I would like to acknowledge a number of colleagues who will not be here when classes resume in September. The following individuals have been at HSC covering a variety of leaves and we wish them well in their future endeavours:

Imogen Pearson
Ximena Bensusan
Katie Greer

The following individuals, Taya Cicchetti and Shahla Shakerinia, will be on leave next year. We wish them well and look forward to their return.

We also have two legendary faculty members retiring this year and they will be sorely missed:

Mrs. Blanka Guyatt for 35 years.

Mrs. Guyatts’s true legacy at HSC is undeniably etched in the formation of the Student Services Department in 1989. For the past three decades, Blanka has shared her depth of knowledge and wealth of counselling experience with thousands of students, walking with each and every one of them as they transformed their post-secondary dreams into realities. One of the measures of a great school is how well its graduates perform at university and beyond. HSC will be forever grateful to Mrs. Guyatt for shepherding our grads and ensuring that they go on to be successful, independent learners beyond our gates.

Dr. David Moffatt 27 years

An innovative pioneer, when it comes to the design and delivery of both Geography and Biology curricula, Dr. Moffatt was the first HSC teacher to provide on-line and web-based learning to his students. He was one of the first to transform his program with incorporate SMART technology at a time when most educators were still chalk and blackboard reliant. Dr. Moffatt has always created energy and excitement for learning. In 2008, Dr. Moffatt was recognized at the highest level for his exceptional abilities as an educator when he was presented with The Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence. It is Dr. Moffatt’s passionate spirit and relentless desire to build genuine learning enthusiasm in his students as his greatest teaching legacies.

We salute Ms. Guyatt and Dr. Moffatt and thank them for everything that he has done in support of his students and the College.

I would like to also recognize Dr. Tom Matthews and Mrs. Sheena Matthews and their family, who are here as proud parents, but who also played such a huge role in the development of all of our graduates.

I also would like to take a moment to recognize Mr. Paul Philp, whose commitment to HSC and its new Head as Chair of the Board. Please join me in recognizing Mr. Philp as he comes forward to bring greetings the Board of Governors and the Board of Trustees.

Change is Good - Address to the Graduating Class of 2011

One of my biggest concerns about becoming a Head of College was that I would necessarily lose some of my direct contact with students, which was my entire reason for going into teaching and where I got so much of my energy every day as a teacher and principal of a senior school.

That is why when I was offered an opportunity by Mrs. Guyatt to host small groups of graduating students in my office to talk about the transition to university, I jumped at the chance.

As a new Head it was a great way for me to meet the students and listen to not only their hopes and dreams for the future, but also to hear about some of their passionate pursuits that have positioned them so well for success beyond the walls of HSC.

Success comes to each of us differently, and as we all know, there have been some interesting and challenging times along the way and the ability of these students that you see today to overcome these trials are what gives me great confidence in their success in the next phase of their lives.

One of the things that I wanted to stress to the students when we met is that although the choice of what comes next in terms of university and program is probably their biggest decision to date, the decision is not carved in stone.

Many of us in this room from teachers to parents are doing something different that what we envisioned that we would be doing when we were 18. What most of us experienced in those pivotal early 20s years was a greater development of a sense of who we are and what makes us excited in our lives. The trick is to figure out how to turn that passion into a life’s work and if you can do that then you will be truly blessed.

For some of you students that may mean that you have to create that for yourselves and for many of you there will be a couple of false starts along the way. We have done our best as a College to try to train you to be resilient, to be open-minded and to test the limits of what you are capable of.

We have done our best to work with you on turning you ideas into realities and to see a future that is full of opportunities. You have had and will continue to have the support of your parents in discovering what success looks like for you. All we ask is that when you find your passion that you pursue it relentlessly.

I’m sure that you have heard throughout the course of your time at HSC that it is a privilege to come here and that opportunity came with no small amount of sacrifice from your family. Anything that is that great of a privilege also comes with a responsibility. Luckily, for you as graduates, you have so many examples to follow in terms of how to meet this responsibility.

You have seen the commitment from your parents to you and I hope that you repay that faith and love to your children. You have seen the commitment from your teachers and I hope that you will always seek to mentor those that come after you. You have seen the passion that the Alumni that have come before you have for their community, and we hope that you will remain as involved in as many great causes both locally and globally as they are and as you have been at HSC.

Finally, you have each other. You will be forever linked to one another as the Class of 2011. I hope that you will make efforts to stay connected with your classmates and with HSC, where you will always be welcome.

Our promise to you when you make the decision to become a student at HSC is that you will be known and you will be loved.

Sometimes when you are in the thick of things, it can be hard to recognize that the hard lessons that your teachers were trying to teach you were because they care so deeply about you and your success.

It may take some time for this to become clear, but when it does, I hope that you send that special teacher a note to say “I get it now”. They will greatly appreciate it.

In closing, I want to say how much I have appreciated the fact that you are my first Grad Class at HSC. I don’t think that I could have started with a better group.

Please join me in congratulations of the Class of 2011!