Blog Posts

One of the things I love most about this time of year is seeing the many ways we celebrate the season.  Visit any one of our schools and you’ll see snowflakes and Christmas trees and happy faces all around. If you are lucky, you might even catch sight of Santa and his elves. And it’s not just in schools and classrooms. The Abbotsford School Board Office is a veritable winter wonderland thanks to the goodwill and creative energy of our folks here. 

On Friday, September 20th, was the much-anticipated Annual WJ Mouat Club Fair. This long-standing tradition, which has been a cornerstone of WJ Mouat school culture, once again demonstrated the vibrant community spirit and the many opportunities for students to get involved. 

The Importance and Impact of Thinking Math Classrooms

I spoke with an elementary student recently. He was a hockey fan and could easily recite NHL players' names. He knew their jersey numbers, the positions they played, and sometimes the number of goals and assists they scored. I suspect you might know a sports fan like this, too.

Most of us understand that time is a precious commodity. There is no going back when a moment, a week, or a year has passed. So how we spend our time ought to be a key consideration. What is more, the demands of life and career are such that it can often feel as if there is not enough time to do the things we want or need to do. Time pressure is real, and I am certainly not immune.

Abbotsford Virtual School (AVS) is a Provincial Online School that serves school-aged and adult students from across the province, catering to those who thrive in a digital learning environment. We offer a flexible curriculum that allows kindergarten through grade 12 students to engage in their studies at their own pace, making it an ideal option for those needing a flexible, non-traditional schooling experience.  We have three main groups of students at AVS: fully enrolled learners, adult learners and cross-enrolled learners.

Bakerview Centre for Learning, our School District’s Alternate Secondary School, is a tight-knit community of staff and outside agencies. We provide students with an alternative academic educational experience where social, emotional, and physical well-being are seen as critical for success—more on that later.         

This year, we are adding two very important Department Head (Team Leader) positions to our staff: Mathematics 6-8 and English Language Arts (ELA) 6-8. As the District Strategic Plan 24-28 has identified Numeracy and Literacy as goals that will improve student success, adding these two positions aligns staffing and our school budget with these goals.

The School of Business and Science at Rick Hansen Secondary School is an innovative opportunity for advanced education available to ambitious students in grades 11 and 12 who are ready to tackle the challenges and opportunities of the modern world. Launched in 2016, our program blends comprehensive academics with real-world experience, creating a dynamic learning environment that prepares students for success both in higher education and their future careers.

Abbotsford Middle School is home to 120 Indigenous students distributed across 24 divisions. This is the highest caseload of all middle schools in the school district. The students, staff, and administration are committed to prioritizing cultural care and connection each week. Teachers and administrators continue to work to develop their understanding of what action items they can do at our school site to support our Indigenous students. One such action item is called, Protected Cultural Teaching.