Hawthorne Village Ranks in the Top 25 in Canada

Yep, you heard it right. Hawthorne Village Public School has been ranked in the top 25 schools in Canada. That is an amazing achievement in itself, but for a school to be at that level in its 2nd year of operation is worth a second look. We are quite familiar with HVPS as its where Anthony has been going to school since senior kindergarten. Every expereince we’ve had with the school, the teachers, the volunteers and any events held there have been nothing short than outstanding.

This article appears in todays Milton Canadian Champion. HVPS is home to many great teachers (not that all teachers arent great!) including a teacher of the month Mrs Sheldrick.

Enjoy…and congratulations to Grant Clatworthy…the Principal of HVPS…GREAT JOB!

School ranks among top 25 in country
Melanie Hennessey

Published on Aug 17, 2007

When it comes to learning institutions in Canada, Hawthorne Village Public School gets an A.
The local school was ranked as one of the top 25 in the country in the recent edition of Today’s Parent magazine, placing in the ‘all-round cool schools’ category.

“It’s exciting,” said Hawthorne school principal Grant Clatworthy. “The most satisfying part is it indicates parents are satisfied with the school.”

The article says, “While it’s not technically an arts school, Hawthorne weaves the arts into traditional curriculum areas daily and co-curriculars are crammed into every possible time slot — whether it’s basketball at 8 a.m., Lego robotics at 10:55 a.m. or clay class at 3:30 p.m.”

It also goes on to note, “Many of the school’s language classes integrate drama or visual arts, helping kids to express their comprehension of material they’ve read.”

The story highlights the Arts Beats assemblies the school holds once a month. Clatworthy explained the assemblies give students a chance to present something they’ve been working on, such as poetry, a drama presentation or even a musical/dance number on recycling.

“It’s designed to provide an opportunity for kids to showcase the learning they’ve done through the arts,” he said. “And the kids have become really appreciative of each other’s presentations. They show a lot of respect.”

The magazine highlights the school’s “creative and industrious” teachers, “encouraging” principal and the estimated 200 parent volunteers that help make things happen.

Clatworthy emphasized that his staff works extremely hard from day to day.

“It’s really a big team effort,” he noted.

The school opened its doors in September 2005 on Bennett Boulevard with a vision of rejuvenating the arts in students’ lives. It made a point of bringing on staff members who have backgrounds in the arts.

Even the school’s design helped contribute to the arts focus, such as the specially designed music room with vaulted ceilings to allow sound to escape.

Burlington’s Alexander’s Public School also made the top 25 this year in the ‘overcoming a challenge’ category, since it had to deal with a construction delay by operating in three different schools.

Today’s Parent readers nominate the schools for consideration on the list.

Melanie Hennessey can be reached at mhennessey@miltoncanadianchampion.com.

One more game to go

Last night was the second last game for this years soccer season and will soon close the book on my debut as a soccer coach. Its been an interesting and challenging few months but something I know I’ll look back on as one of the most fun and rewarding times in my life.

Initially I was pretty unsure of what I was doing, never having coached any sports in the past. Ive played on many teams in a number of sports like hockey and the odd softball league but to have 12 little ones looking to you on a regular basis for help and encouragement…that was a challenge.

At the beginning of the season I had a few goals. One was to help further teach the kids the game of soccer. Most of them had played at least 2 summers worth of the game but there are a couple on the team that are complete rookies to the sport. There’s obviously an importance to keeping your positions and looking at different options while the game is going on.

One of the other goals I had was to make sure that by the end of the game, each one of Team Chudleighs had a good time and had fun. I think both goals have been accomplished big time.

I wouldn’t have been able to do the job I did without the help of the parents on the team. In other years I noticed there were some parents who just showed up, watched the game and then went home. This year was totally different. The parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles were part of the team. Every week they were there … cheering on the kids … encouraging them to do well … applauding at every great offensive and defensive move. It was amazing.

I know there’s one week left but I really wouldn’t have got this far without the help of one parent in particular. Gary Hans (Sunju’s dad and former soccer coach himself) volunteered to help out when my assistant coach had to back out because of work related complications. His strong dedication to the sport has helped inspire me to do better. His enthusiasm was and is contagious and the kids are better soccer players for his teaching. Thanks Gary.

I also have to thank my wife Pat for her help in all this. People have made comments like “wow, you’re really organized!” and that’s only due to Pat’s help. When practices had to be cancelled due to pouring down rain or other things that came up, she was the one who made the phone calls to all the parents. Thanks Pat.

And finally I have to thank the kids on the team. Each one of them has done their very best and whatever the score was of any of the games they always reminded me why they got involved in this…to have fun. Everyone one of the kids on the team has improved so much over the summer and hopefully both Gary and I can take some credit in helping them with their skills. They may have learned things from us but believe me, Ive learned a lot from them as well. They are the greatest bunch of kids Ive seen in a long time. So to Nathan, Anthony, Jordan, Lawson, Matthew, Sunju, Ethan, Jessika, Madison, Syndey, Nicholas, Katie and Kyle…THANKS!!!

Team Chudlieghs will always rock!

So we have only one more practice before the last game and the skills competition. The skills day is a chance for all the players to showcase what they have learned throughout the years and to get their trophies and see all their friends in one place.

I’m asked quite a bit if I’ll do this again next year…and despite the challenges of scheduling practices, following up with parents, getting things ready, making phone calls etc… I think I’ll be back (if they’ll have me of course) for next year. Its been a great summer of soccer and I look forward to many more.

Milton’s Ivory Tower

For those of you who havent seen the news, the Town of Milton is making it known we have some coveted land available for a post secondary institution…almost like a first come first serve.

The town has been talking about this for some time now. Its been in the works for months and they’re finally moving on the pitch. If Milton could scoop a university/college campus for the town it would be a major coup. Mississauga was/is trying for the same thing.

There is a shortage of spaces available at post secondary schools in Ontario and with getting rid of Grade 13, it only got worse with more students looking for a place to go. Its a huge piece of land and giving it away might sound like the wrong thing but the long term goals outweigh the short term.

Where its located, it can provide a huge boost…especially with young people…shopping in town. Its really close to downtown Milton which can only benefit from the additional people. Traffic of course would increase and we have to make sure the towns ready for it and plan in advance. We would have to look closely at locations in Oakville by Sheridan College and the traffic impacts there. The town would have to look at how commuters will be getting to the campus, for instance GO train or GO bus. If so, we would have to start now working on a deal with the province to provide sufficient GO bus/train service to Milton, well before the ground is broken on the campus.

You can also play devils advocate and say with bringing in more students you will increase the need for “affordable housing” IE apartments and it would also increase the demand for basement apartments. Its something I don’t think the town has an official by law on and it in turn would have to be looked at. Not everyone who would be attending this campus location would be from the area. With it getting harder and harder for students to get into high demand university programs, a good college system will be needed to catch the overflow and provide a high quality program to keep up with the needs of business and technology in the future.

And thats just the tip of the iceberg. Many questions need to be asked, studied and answered. When you make a decision like this you have to look at the long term impact…5, 10 and 15 years in the future. Its something the Town of Milton hasn’t done very well in the past and I hope that will change in the coming months/years to come.

I think, if its planned correctly, a college or university campus located in Milton can be a good thing. Only if they use common sense in making those plans. We can only hope.

Here’s the article.

Milton covets its own ivory tower TheStar.com - Education - Milton covets its own ivory tower

Fastest-growing town in Canada offers free land in bid to lure a university or college campus

August 01, 2007

Louise Brown
Education Reporter

Free to a good campus: A chunk of Canada’s new boom town.

Bustling Milton may have the fastest-growing population in the country and a business boom to match, but there’s one thing it hasn’t got that it wants very badly.

A wing of the ivory tower.

It’s offering a $3.5 million parcel of land by the main drag, just steps from the GO Train station, free to the first college or university to bite.

The timing couldn’t be better, after Toronto university presidents warned this week a surprise surge in enrolment could bring 40,000 more students to GTA colleges and universities in the next 15 years – sparking talk of a possible new GTA campus.

“The way we’re growing – and the way the GTA is growing – this could be the most sensible location for a new campus,” said Mario Belvedere, Milton’s chief administrative officer, who calls the two-hectare site of the old Pigment and Chemical paint factory “a dynamite, gorgeous location.”

“We want a post-secondary institution to balance out our residential and industrial growth – we’ve got a disproportionate number of kids here and in a few years they’ll need somewhere to go for higher education,” said Belvedere.

Milton topped the charts in the latest Census by roughly doubling the number of children under 14 in just five years, making it a young town that will put pressure on the school system, he said. It opened two more schools last year and has another two ready to open this fall.

These students will be part of the boom that puts pressure on all GTA universities, as well as community colleges such as George Brown College, which face the same space crunch as enrolments climb.

The U of T already has satellite campuses in Mississauga and Scarborough. McMaster University in Hamilton plans to open a campus in Burlington. Sheridan College in Oakville has a satellite campus in Brampton. The University of Guelph has a joint campus with Humber College in Etobicoke.

Still, Milton needs its own campus, says Belvedere.

“But we realized just wishing for a university or college to come here is not enough; we need to attract their attention.”

The town acquired the land through a partnership with the Royal Bank. Officials are contacting all Ontario colleges and universities to pitch the free land. The offer expires in December 2008.

It has even posted a sign that proclaims with confidence, if few details: Future Home of Post-Secondary Institution.

“Free land!” says Belvedere. “Is that amazing or what?”

Humber College plans to open a satellite campus in 2009 in Orangeville.

Are you gellin?

Team Chudlieghs is definitely gelling. Last Thursday was a big time game against Tim Horton’s Navy Blue team. The temperature was well over 30C without factoring in the humidity and it showed no sign of letting up.

Topping all of that both teams found themselves short staffed and looked like they’d be pulling an “iron man” style of soccer. Both myself and the coach of the other team agreed we would only play 20 minutes per half and LOTS of water breaks in between.

For the first half it was quite the defensive duel as both teams made it down to the oppositions end but came up short shooting on net. The heat was definitely a factor in this one. You could see it on both sides faces it was getting too warm but they wanted to keep playing.

I was running around the field most of the game with a big water bottle, giving as much water to both teams as possible because you dont want to have anyone pass out and hurt themselves. It got a kick out of the parents watching so…

After half time the teams looked a bit more enthusiastic and ready to go. Opening the second half kick off was Madison, who played a stellar game in net for the first half, launching the ball well into the other teams zone. Matthew raced up the side and with his quick feet, scored a very quick goal. Shortly after that…a second goal was scored.

Another big story of this weeks game was Nicholas. He has grown into a great defense player and he was showing it off early and often in the game. When the opposing team made it anywhere near where Nicholas was……bam! It was gone up the sides, textbook style and back into the possession of Chudleigh’s players. Ethan was also doing a great job passing the ball to open players such as Anthony, Matthew and Madison.

Anthony played goal for the second half and once again showed his risk taking skills off by making those much needed saves. Ethan was passing the ball again to Madison and Matthew which resulted in another Chudlieghs goal!

When it was all said and done Chudliegh’s pulled off another win 3-1. What I, along with many of the parents on the side, found was they were playing positions, calling out “IM OPEN” and doing the big kick and runs like at practice to perfection.

They have gone from a group of kids wanting to play soccer and have now gelled into a soccer team. These kids are an amazing group and it also reflects on their parents as well. For my first year coaching (and its not over yet) I think we’ve done a great job and I really dont want the season to end.