THE
SPEAR
Winter 2016-17
What’s Inside 1
Meet our mascot, Sparty!
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Check in on our makerspaces
Cindy Jordan on 40 years at TBS
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Singing in Italy
Next Generation Science Standards
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Building Community
Meet our new mascot! Meet Sparty! He hails from the Spartans of ancient Greece to represent The Burlington School and our “city” of people. Like the original Spartans, Sparty stands for loyalty, perseverance, and diligence.
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There’s no place like home Cindy Jordan found her home at Burlington Day School 40 years ago and never looked back.
Thinking back forty years, Mrs. Cindy Jordan recalls the difficulty of finding a teaching job. Her search landed her at the Burlington Day School (BDS), and though she didn’t know it then, she had found her home. Mrs. Jordan reminisced that finding a teaching job years ago wasn’t so easy. She was very eager to take on a job with BDS and came to realize over time that she didn’t want to leave. “I fell in love with the atmosphere and sense of family,” Mrs. Jordan said. For most of her career, Mrs. Jordan has taught the first grade. She has also taught kindergarten and second grade, but maintained that her favorite grade is first. She spoke about the sense of independence children gain when they are in first grade. Through her career, that growing confidence has been one of several teaching constants. “I still teach reading, writing and arithmetic,” Mrs. Jordan stated. She noted while the subjects are the same, the real life examples are different. Top: Mrs. Jordan goes For years, she used a phone book to teach alphabetical order, but now, she over a math activity with shows students the contact list on her phone. her class; Left: Mrs. Jordan enjoying Field Day Just as she’s done for decades, Mrs. Jordan tells her students the in 2015. same thing. “I tell my students to remember my name, and if they can do that, the rest of first grade will fall into place,” Mrs. Jordan said, “If you remember your first grade teacher, you probably had a good educational experience.” Many of her former students must have heeded that advice because she has taught at least 15 of her former students’ children. Mrs. Jordan’s favorite aspect of teaching first grade is creating lasting, positive impressions with her first grade students. Mrs. Jordan said, “[I] make sure learning continues to be fun because it’s just the start of the journey.”
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Italy
TBS Choir tours
A 5th-12th grade choir, conducted by Marshall M. Qualls, took a ten-day singing tour of Italy beginning on November 17th, 2016. In preparation for their trip, the group practiced every Sunday starting in August. The group was comprised of 20 students from the Middle and Upper School choral ensembles. They sang Mass at the Duomo di Siena and at the Basilica di San Francesco in Assisi. Their final performance in Mass took place in the Papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore. The students performed at a school in Rome before returning to the States. At the school, they were able to make new, international friends.
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“Italy was an incredible experience for me because I got to travel to so many new and culturally diverse places. I’ll never forget how it felt to perform there, or the memories I made with my fellow classmates on the trip as we bonded.”
Amelia Arcaro-Burbridge, Class of 2018 “My favorite part was going to the Italian high school and meeting new people! I met a girl there and we talk to each other every day!”
Kylie Adams, Class of 2021
Top: Rikeah Johnson and Martha Barefoot-Yeager smile after a performance; Middle Left: TBS choir poses with Roman students; Middle Right: Christopher
Latham, Liza Self, and Molly Partin enjoy gelato in front of the Trevi Fountain; Bottom: Students pose in front of the Coliseum; Page 3: The choir rehearses in the Papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.
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Science
Next Generation
In the summer of 2015, upper school science teacher, Cathia Acton, and academic dean, Dr. Jenny Sabin, worked together to align the upper school science courses to Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). NGSS breaks down science learning into three dimensions: disciplinary core ideas, science and engineering practices, and crosscutting concepts. The disciplinary core ideas include focusing the curriculum on the most important aspects of science. The science and engineering practices determine the actual behaviors and skills that students should be able to perform. The crosscutting concepts portion is designed to help students see how core concepts can apply to many areas of science. These concepts include patterns, similarity, and diversity; cause and effect, proportion, quantity; and many more. By creating connections across these dimensions, students can create a deeper and more lasting understanding of scientific concepts. After Mrs. Acton successfully taught with those standards for a full year, Dr. Sabin recently worked with middle school science teacher, Kristi Tanner, to align the Middle School science curriculum with NGSS standards. The class of 2025 (current 4th graders) will be the first class to have fully aligned NGSS standards throughout Middle and Upper School. Carolina Biological Supply Company and the Smithsonian Science Education Center (SSEC) have been working hard over the last year to develop unit curriculums that are aligned with the NGSS. Some of their units are still in the planning and testing phase. Beginning this trimester, Mrs. Tanner is field testing two courses that comply with NGSS standards through a partnership with Carolina Biological and the SSEC. One course under trial, Ecosystems and their Interactions, is in its first stage of testing. Carolina Biological Supply Co. has provided all of the materials necessary for the course on the condition that Mrs. Tanner provides daily, thorough feedback about the course. She writes about things like student interest and
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Top: Walker Black examines a specimen for his pond; Bottom: Annika Patel and Bricen Bullis plant organisms in their pond.
understanding, direction clarity, time requirements and management, and more. While it is a lot of extra work for Mrs. Tanner, she says that she is glad to do it because it gives students exposure to the most current and relevant science standards while providing feedback that benefits the greater science education community. Her students latest project with this course is creating ponds with living ecosystems. Mrs. Tanner is also teaching a course near the end of its testing phase, Energy, Forces, and Motion. The materials for this course were also provided by Carolina Biological Supply Co. with the same stipulation of feedback. Outside of providing course materials, Carolina Biological Supply Co. has extended its support to our Upper School by offering paid internships to our students. They are paid to test classroom experiments and provide feedback on those experiments.
Top: Nashonn Jones, Annika Patel, and Amelia Barnwell fill their soon-tobe pond; Bottom: Ayden Hailey, Walker Black, Taylor Jones, and Warren Yellock add water to the beginnings of their pond.
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This year we are coming together to build, not just a building, but relationships, too. Top: Adrianna Dobbs, Jasmine Reese, Priya Roar and Cameron Rose brainstorm team building activities for the next all-school event; Bottom Left: Stacy Riddle supervises while Shelby Thompson, Sam Parker, and Sophia Smith raise hands in group meeting; Bottom Right: A team poses behind their food sculpture.
Students in preschool 3-12th grade and the entire staff divided into teams to create new cross-divisional friendships on November 21st. This event was the first of several events that were proposed by our Upper School students. Their desire is to spend more time at the Lower School to build relationships with younger Spartans. There will be a community building event like this, where the whole school comes together, almost every remaining month of the school year. These events each have their own purpose and will ultimately lead to an end of the year celebration of team unity: Field Day. On Monday, November 21st, students and staff spent time in their new teams getting to know one another and participating in a few team building activities. Following that, each team entered a sculpture in the Salvation Army Food Sculpture contest where teams had their first healthy competition. The food utilized in this sculpture building contest was collected by our entire school population prior to the event and was donated to the Salvation Army at the end of the day. Thanks to our families, over 618 pounds of food were donated! The winning team walked away with bragging rights, but more importantly, 300 families in need received breakfast. Our students and staff worked collaboratively during this event to enhance relationships through building friendships, showing empathy, cultivating passion, demonstrating leadership, embracing citizenship, honoring perseverance, and living with integrity: The Burlington School pledge at work.
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Save the date! January 25, 2017 6:30 PM
State of the School Address We look forward to seeing you!
Did you hear?
We’re building a new Upper School! The building is on track to open in 2018! The new Upper School facility will be located on the lot next to our Middle and Lower School building on Greenwood Terrace.
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1615 Greenwood Terrace Burlington, NC 27215
ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED
Mark your calendar for our Annual Auction and Dinner!
March 31st
Keep up with us on your favorite platform!
@tbs_spartans www.theburlingtonschool.org PS3-12 • COLLEGE PREPARATORY • INDEXED TUITION • INDEPENDENT 1615 Greenwood Terrace/408 West Davis Street Burlington, NC 27215 • 336.228.0296
Layout and Design by Katie Pullman Front Cover: Sparty gives out high-fives to our Lower School students at our Salvation Army Service Day.