Back to School Night

Back to School Night WIS Community: What’s my role? What’s my responsibility?

We all belong to different communities and the role we play in these communities determines how we identify with these communities and how important these communities are for us.

“The school community definition is a group of people with a mutual interest in creating an environment that encourages learning. Therefore, it is called a school community because of the shared interest in facilitating learning activities and all the factors that make it effective, including the staff's well-being. The purpose of a school community is to enhance engagement between the various stakeholders, including school administration, parents or guardians, the community, and the students, to empower the students to learn better. The connection between the various entities enhances the learning and teaching outcomes.” (Study.com)

Why are School Communities Important?

“Research shows that strong school community relations are essential to academic success. Forming strong school communities is vital for students of all ages. The following shows the importance of school communities:

• It helps in creating student-based beneficial policies: The kind of policies in schools determines the institution's success level. When various stakeholders work together, they complement each other and generate practical and relevant policies for the students.

• It promotes healthy connections and relationships among students, parents, and staff members: This leads to functional support systems that encourage students' creativity, problem-solving, and innovation. Community partnership schools involve more than the administration and teachers in the students' journeys, making it more effective.

• It helps in understanding the unique needs of their students: It takes parents' active involvement and quality community relationships to enhance the teacher-student relationship. Teachers can understand students better when working with their caregivers, especially students with unique needs.

• It creates a safe environment for learning: School communities are an opportunity for leaders to create an environment where learning happens. This can be done by creating a welcoming, open, and safe learning environment for students, staff, and parents.

Healthy school communities are places where students feel safe and supported and know they can take risks and still feel safe, even in dangerous situations. Healthy school communities have high levels of engagement among students, where students know where they can go for help when they need it. They also know they have a friend in the office when they have a problem.” (What is a school community?)

With Back to School Night happening on the 30th of August, an invitation goes out to all members of our WIS community. Your active participation in this event - as a parent, a student, a teacher, an administrator, or anyone else who is part of our community, will set the tone for the new year at WIS and how we live our WIS Principles - Purpose - People - Excellence - Ownership - Creativity - Sustainability. In order to achieve these principles, we have to contribute to the wellbeing and prosperity of our WIS community and it is each of our responsibility to care and contribute our ideas and energy.

We hope to see all our parents on Wednesday at our Back to School Night. There will be an opportunity to meet each other - the other parents in your child’s class as well as other parents. There is an opportunity to meet your child’s teachers. Without the partnership between the school and home, education and learning can not be the best it can be.

There is no power of change greater than a community discovering what it cares about. (Margaret Wheatley)

Maggie Reiff

Secondary Principal