Hello Parents of Grade
7 Students!!
Fall is my
favourite time of year and I am super excited about what God is going to do
this year in me, in your kids, and in our school.
Let me
introduce myself! My name is Joanne
Robideau and I will be your child’s homeroom teacher this school year. This means that I will teach all the subjects
except for the electives which are Spanish/French and Music. In the second semester (starting the first
week of February), students will also select from Middle School Electives such
as Drama/Small Engines/Teacher’s Assistance/Digital Photography and Worship
Band.
My
responsibilities include (in order of importance):
- · discipling your children in the Lord
- · covering all the learning outcomes of grade 7 according to the B.C. Ministry of Education
- · helping students transition this delicate stage of elementary student to secondary student as well as the transition from child to teenager and all that this entails.
Does this sound like a monumental
task? Would you like my job? Most parents would answer with a resounding
YES to the first question and a resounding NO to the second. It’s so good that God gifts us all
differently because I LOVE what He has called me to do and I am sure I wouldn’t
be able to do your job as well as you do.
Some of you
are new to me this year. Some of you I
have known a long time. I am
particularly excited about teaching one child in particular because he
represents a milestone for me in my teaching career. Micah Dryden will be the first student I have
taught who is the child of a student I taught.
Whooo hooo! I taught his mother,
Rachael, grade 11 and 12 back when Heritage Christian School was on Gerstmar
Road and she and I wore grey plaid kilts to school every day. (Boo school uniforms!)
If you are a
new family, here is a little of my professional background:
·
I
am starting my 26th year of teaching!!
·
I
began teaching at Prairie Bible Institute in the Jr./Sr. High School in Three
Hills, AB. I met and married my husband,
Gordon there and we taught together at Prairie for 7 years.
·
We
moved to Kelowna to teach at Heritage and were here from 1995 to 2001 where we
taught in the Secondary and my husband became the Principal.
·
We
moved back to Alberta with our 2 young children and Gordon taught at Strathcona
Christian Academy while I stayed home full time and substitute taught until our
children were in school.
·
In
2006 we moved back to the Okanagan and back to Heritage. We have joyfully been here ever since!
·
My
major is Secondary English, but I have taught every grade but Kindergarten and almost
every subject excluding Secondary Maths and Sciences.
·
I
enjoy every grade level but I seem to have a special love for grade 7.
·
In
the past, I have dabbled in many different education specialties such as
setting up and running an English as a Second Language Department, setting up
and running a Recreational Gymnastics Program, teaching Elementary P.E., writing
our online school’s Communications 11 and 12 courses, and teaching English 11
for 3 years as an online summer school course.
·
Five
years ago, I moved from the secondary to the elementary when the administration
decided to make grade 7 a more transitional year for students. My own children, Annie (Gr. 11) and Ben (Gr.
9) successfully survived having their mother as their grade 7 teacher.
Hopefully this information has given
you some information on who the woman is who is teaching your child.
I don’t want to overwhelm you with a
great deal of information on this first day, but you can expect that something
will come home with your child pretty much every day this week. Everything this first week will be in hard
copy, but more and more I will be using digital ways of communicating with you.
If you would already prefer an alternate method that is available to you,
everything I send home this week will all be available online on my classroom
blog at www.robideauclass.blogspot.ca
Thank you for entrusting your child
to me this year. I welcome your prayers,
encouragement and overall communication about how I can better understand your
child.
Bless you,
Joanne Robideau
