Principal’s Message
Once again Malvern students are cleaning their lockers, returning their textbooks and making summer plans. The school year seems to have flown by! As we look back on the past 10 months we can see that Malvern staff and students have been incredibly busy and they have continued to impress everyone with their tremendous accomplishments. The name Malvern Collegiate continues to be synonymous with the highest levels of achievement in academics, sports, music, drama and the arts. This year Malvern staff and students once again treated us to outstanding performances in various productions such as Hair, Docudramas, Malvern Idol, Fashion Show, Library Art Exhibit, Music Fest and Boardwalk Ball.
Our Athletes continue to be daunting opponents in many sports this year. Congratulations to all of our coaches, advisors and athletes. The following teams were City Champions: Senior Boys Cross Country, Junior and Senior Girls Rugby 7’s, Senior Boys Rugby 7’s, Boys and Girls (Individual) Golf, Swimming (Boys and Girls), Alpine Skiing, Synchro, Senior Boys Rugby, Boys Lacrosse. The following teams also represented Malvern at OFSAA: Tennis, Cross Country, Golf, Swimming, Alpine Skiing, Girls Rugby, Senior Boys Rugby, Boys Lacrosse, Track and Field. Our talented Cheerleading Team also placed 3rd at the National Level Competitions. Wow! This was an incredible list for a school our size.
Our students continued to have many travel and excursion opportunities. In addition to several local trips such as Stratford they were able to journey to France, Italy, New Orleans and the Galapagos Islands! These wonderful opportunities take place because our teachers give up a huge amount of time and energy to make sure that our students get the best possible educational experiences outside the classroom and inside. A sincere thank you goes out to all our great teachers and support staff and all that they do for our students.
This year Malvern C.I. is the secondary school recipient for the prestigious Anne Hope Award given to a selected school for their work in equity and social justice issues. The Award Committee was very impressed with activities such as our Grade 9 Equity Conference, our student led Human Rights initiatives, Pink Day, Brick by Brick, our Black History Assembly, the various projects and fundraising taken on by our Leadership groups which raised well over $10,000 for various charities and plans for our new Social Justice course. Congratulations to all the students who made this possible and to staff members such as Mr. Izzo, Ms Furgiuele, Ms Dawe, Mr Mlilo, Ms Lewis, Ms Gage and Ms Axler who helped guide them with these various projects.
Malvern has earned yet another award! This year after much hard work our Environment Club led by Ms Blake has earned the coveted Gold Leaf Award for Eco Schools. The process to earn this award was rigorous and we commend the group on their efforts to reduce energy consumption, encourage reusable products and recycling and bringing in numerous guest speakers to heighten our awareness on a variety of environmental issues. Well done! We look forward to giving you more information in the fall about our new Specialist High Skills Major program with a specific focus on the environment.
Our parents and community members continue to demonstrate outstanding support in making Malvern a better place. This year was remarkable in that three of our major school organizations joined forces in the fight to save our school pool: our Home and School Association (parents), our Red and Black Society (alumni) and our Onward Malvern Foundation (school fundraising group). Representatives from all 3 groups have met several times with a multi-faceted plan involving fundraising at all levels, newspaper ads, contact with board officials and politicians and detailed presentations to various groups. At this time donations from all over have raised well over $10,000 with more arriving daily. We are hoping to secure long term outside permits for the use of our pool from groups such as the YMCA to ensure that funding for our pool remains stable. I remain very positive that thanks to tremendous efforts of individuals such as Heidi Deschenes, Nancy Palmer, Vandra Masemann, June Ntazinda, Steve Thomas, Cori Skuffham, Chris Smelt, Leslie Rose, Mark Greenfield and many more who are working behind the scenes that our pool will be saved permanently and that we will be swim and synchro champions once again! Onward Malvern! A sincere thank you and adieu to our outgoing Home and School Council Co-Chair Mark Greenfield who will be leaving us after several years of dedicated and passionate efforts to make Malvern a better place. You will be missed Mark!
We are already preparing for the next school year. We will again have early registration dates for picking up timetables and agendas. We are requesting that students bring $75.00 with them to cover the cost of activity cards which support our tremendous array of clubs, teams and programs (including swimming), agendas and yearbooks. Please see the enclosed Registration Bulletin for more details. Please note that changes to timetables in September may only be considered due to conflicts, summer school results or graduation requirements. Students are expected to carry their courses through June once course programs have been settled in September. Withdrawal from a course will only be considered if the student has made a sincere effort in the course.
We have no staff retirements this year but I would like to extend my best wishes to the following teachers who will be on leave next year: Celeste Nayler, Rita Furgiuele and Lisa Valcic-Meckes. Best wishes as well to Darren Gani who has been on leave for the past two years and has decided to pursue other career opportunities in England. We will miss you!
Classes for the fall term will begin with a special schedule on Tuesday September 8th. Grade 9 students will report to the auditorium at 9:00 a.m. and will be dismissed by 11:30 a.m. Students in Grades 10 to 12 should report to the school at 1:00 p.m. Master lists of home form classrooms will be posted in several locations on the first floor of the building. Students should locate their home form classes, be in attendance by 1:00 p.m. and will be dismissed by 2:00 p.m. School will resume with a regular schedule for all students on Wednesday September 9th.
As you know our Respect Committee worked very hard this year on initiatives such as Anti-Bullying, Peace Week and many other projects which included workshops, guest speakers and surveys. Our efforts in these areas should not be confined to isolated activities. It is expected that ALL Malvern students are responsible for contributing to a safe, respectful and enjoyable environment at our school. We know that all of our senior students will model and demonstrate this and welcome our junior students appropriately in September.
Finally, I want to sincerely thank you, all of you in the Malvern community for your tremendous support throughout the year and wish you all a wonderful, restful and enjoyable summer!
Line Pinard
Home and School
As your retiring Co-Chair on Home and School, I wanted to thank all the staff, students, parents and guardians that I have worked with over the years for your amazing support. Your contributions to Home and School make a real difference to the life of Malvern in many ways. Along with specific projects, like lobbying the TDSB to improve the school’s physical plant, helping build out a new fitness facility, funding scholarships, and supporting efforts to maintain our pool, equally important is our on-going support to staff and students to enrich Malvern’s academic, social and athletic life.
For those of you who are involved, thanks again and keep up the good work. For those of you, who haven’t yet joined Home and School, check us out. Meetings are held at the school the first Tuesday of each month during the school year. Help out, support your kid, have some fun, and make Malvern an even better school.
Mark Greenfield
STUDENT COUNCIL
On behalf of this year’s Student Council, I would like to thank the students, staff and teachers for their participation and support in all of the events and activities put on this year. It was a great year and it wouldn’t have been possible without everyone’s support.
I would also like to take this opportunity and welcome the Student Council for the 2009-2010 School year:
President / Mutesi NtazindaVice President / Elijah Harper
Senior Representative / Liza Marner
External Affairs / Paige Sopik
Social Convenor / Erica Davison
Spirit Leader / Duncan Tooley
Junior Representative / Sophie Wolpert Patterson
Treasurer / Samantha Read
Secretary / Alice Norton-Bell
Grade 9 Representative / Elections to be held in September
C.Tyrell
SHORT FICTION CONTEST WINNERS!
Once again this year, our students have upheld the Malvern tradition of fine creative writing! The Toronto Council of Teachers of English Short Fiction Contest was entered by eleven students this year, ten from Mrs. Bourdon-King’s Writer’s Craft classes, and one Grade 11 student, Sally Aagaard, from Mrs. Valcic-Meckes’s English class. Of the short stories entered, eight students were included in the top half of approximately 100 stories, and of those eight, five were included in the short list of 20 for the final round: Sally Aagaard, Sam Bennett, Toby Farrell, Patrick Smith, and Kate Sprung. Judging Day was held on April 18th, and the winners were announced at Author’s Day, held this year at Historic Fort York on the afternoon of May 8th. The eight students invited to Author’s Day (the five finalists, plus Sophie Denison, Madeleine Prendergast, and Jacob Werker) enjoyed an afternoon of sharing parts of their stories with other student contenders, and invited published authors, including Megan Crewe, a former TCTE Contest winner, and Rose Culp, an author who teaches at Humberside Collegiate. In the end, we had two stories by Malvern students published in the Contest Booklet: Sam Bennett’s droll story about a Maritime pub owner, “An Extraordinary Story from Thaddeus Ward”, and Patrick Smith’s coming-of-age story, “In Transit”. Congratulations and thanks to all our student participants and especially to Sam and Patrick for their winning stories! We’re very proud of all of you!
Marlene Bourdon-King
MATHEMATICS COMPETITION WINNERS
This year Malvern Collegiate students participated in the University of Waterloo Canadian Mathematics competitions. The Pascal (Grade 9), the Cayley (Grade 10) and the Fermat (Grade 11) contests were written by approximately 84,000 students from over 3,822 schools across Canada. The Euclid contest is written by students in their last year of high school and students compete not only at a national level but also internationally. The aim of these competitions is to provide students with an opportunity to test their mathematical prowess at a local, provincial and national level. In each competition, students who place in the top 25th percentile are awarded certificates of distinction and are ranked at a local and provincial level. In addition, the top performer in the school is awarded a medal.
The math department is delighted to announce that 16 students were awarded honour roll distinction and 4 received school champion medals.
PASCAL WINNERS (Grade 9)· Danielle Weingarten (medal), Eileen Church Carson, Zoe Willett
CAYLEY WINNERS (Grade 10)
· Colleen Kinross (medal), Myles Ashall, Emily Lamoureux, Brandon Sked, Han Du, Emily Pitre, Tatum Mackey
FERMAT WINNERS (Grade 11)
· Crystal Li (medal), Jeffery Kong, Rachel Hart, John Steinmetz
EUCLID (Grade 12)
· Caitlyn Cartwright (medal), Alison Kinross
HIGHLIGHTS (Honour roll distinction)
PASCAL (Grade 9)
· Out of 11, 361 students who wrote the Pascal contest, Danielle Weingarten ranked in the top 24%.
CAYLEY (Grade 10)
· A terrific accomplishment by Colleen Kinross for placing in the top 8% provincially.
FERMAT (Grade 11)
· An outstanding achievement by Crystal Liu for placing in the top 4.8% in the province.
EUCLID (Grade 12)
· Top medal contestant is Caitlyn Cartwright scoring in the top 5% locally and top 10% provincially.
In addition to the above contests, Malvern participated in the Fryer, Galois and Hypatia (FGH) Contests. The FGH Contests are designed to give students an additional mathematical challenge during the school year, and one that requires full written solutions.
Communicating in Mathematics is an important requirement and students are encouraged to demonstrate their mathematical skill using proper form.
A special congratulation goes to Danielle Weingarten, Jessica Eng, Han Du, Colleen Kinross, and Tatum Mackey for obtaining the Silver Award Certificate.
I would also like to congratulate not only the award winners but also all the students who wrote these contests. A lot of time, effort and dedication are put towards preparing and for that I commend you. I know many of you enjoyed this experience and my hope is to see you participate in future mathematical activities.
Ms. Barsby would also like to acknowledge our math teachers. Without their dedicated support in coaching our students, it would be impossible to run such an extensive competition.
Elizabeth Barsby
Malvern’s Synchro Teams are Champions Again!
Malvern’s two synchro teams are pleased to have added another year to our run of Regional Championships. Our A Team and our B Team combined to earn our fifth overall championship in a row! We accomplished a lot in such a short season: the girls learned their individual figures and put together complete routines in only two months.
Congratulations to all of the swimmers and lifeguards who got up for the morning practices. Thanks also to Alison Tuer who volunteered to coach the B Team.
Once again, we are wondering whether our very successful athletes will be able to continue swimming next year. They are hoping the Board does not allow our pool to close at the end of this year to deprive them of that opportunity.