School Leadership
North Point School's leadership emphasizes a unique approach to education tailored for boys, integrating direct instruction, technology, and physical activity to cater to their kinesthetic learning style. The leadership team prioritizes creating an environment that harnesses boys' strengths in exploration and adventure, ensuring engaging and effective learning experiences that address boys' specific educational challenges.
Page Contents
Facts and analysis
MESSAGE FROM THE LEADERSHIP
We invited Brent Devost, Head of School at North Point School, to share a message.
The overview highlights the vision, values, and guiding principles that shape leadership and the student experience at North Point School.
Brent Devost, Head of School
B. Ed.
From our teachers and staff to our students and parents, we have all come together around the common purpose of making education exciting, invigorating, challenging and enjoyable for our boys. Over the past decade boys have fallen behind in classroom achievement, numbers going on to post-secondary education, and numbers getting jobs out of University. The research points to an education system not ideally designed for how boys learn and behave.
An education system that once focused on math and science and which encouraged healthy competition, now pushes reading and writing at a much younger age and rewards students who can sit still and listen quietly. This approach is not very effective for many boys, who tend to be kinesthetic learners. On occasion, this creates behaviour problems in the classroom simply because boys listen and learn better if they can move around and manipulate things. North Point provides a blended learning approach (using direct instruction and integrated technology platforms), and a daily program which integrates outdoor education and physical activity. This creates an environment where boys learn more attentively in a way that makes sense for them.
Research shows that boys develop language skills later than girls, and yet the pressure to read and write begins early in kindergarten, putting boys at a disadvantage right out of the gate, often turning them off school before they can develop a love of learning.
Teachers who have experience in an all boys' environment recognize that boys arrive to school fidgety, less organized and with a fascination for exploration, adventure and building. North Point School is about changing the way that boys are taught on every level, working with their strengths and appealing to their individual learning style.
