Our Mission
Learning to live well, with others and for others, in a just community.
Why is our School Mission so important?
Students must learn to care for others, as an increasingly interdependent society can fragment and become dangerous if we do not share concerns for the welfare of all. That is why we value and insist upon a strong service component in our school, and why we have developed a strong travel program.
We have created a just community within the school – one shaped by caring and trust, as well as clarity of expectations and rules. We have a commitment to supporting communities around the world because we know that social justice depends on communities becoming self-sufficient and educated. We want to build a just society.
Our Vision Statement
People are drawn to our school from around the world. In the spirit of active collaboration with teachers, peers, and our community, we learn how to care for ourselves and for others. Knowing that change is the only certainty, we engage with challenging and complex questions effectively and creatively. Through outstanding teaching, programs, and facilities, Meadowridge develops in us the confidence not only to meet the future but also to create it.
I like working here because the quality of the students and staff is not limited to academics; there is a recognition of the importance of everything else. People acknowledge the need for a sense of community, in which people are motivated to do things for the right reasons. Kids ask me how I’m doing in the halls, and they actually want to know. Carrie Mohoruk, High School Teacher
How Was Our Vision Created?
Our Vision arose through a community-wide series of conversations. It also involved substantial research into learning, technology, facilities, and the changing nature of life and work in the twenty-first century.
It became clear that knowledge was changing quickly, and that ways of making a living were changing even more rapidly. The old ways of “preparing” students for life after school were no longer dependable, and we understood that we had to prepare for a rapidly changing world, a world that was increasingly global, intercultural, complex, and interdependent.
We are committed to experiential learning as a way to integrate the learning of the head, the heart, and the hands – so that children can learn to live well, with others and for others.
It also became clear that the ability to work with others was central to future success and happiness, and that the others with whom we would live in the future would be from every culture, and from around the world. As a result, we shaped our vision by first welcoming the world to Meadowridge, articulating our desire and intention to become a global school.
We formulated a vision that called upon our school to teach students how to care for themselves, because a balanced and happy life is critical to their future. That has led to our focus on student well-being, including a teaching component on physical and emotional health, as well as a speaker series on several issues related to how students interact in the world. This focus also led us to a strong outdoor and environmental program within our school.
We wanted to prepare for a future where knowledge is unstable, so we adopted a curriculum based on inquiry – The International Baccalaureate (IB). This ensures that our students are among the most knowledgeable in the world, but also that they learn to embrace the complex questions that will shape their lives. They learn to think and to communicate; to research and to question; to collaborate and to be independent.
Our Vision also calls upon us to develop teachers and facilities to fully meet students' needs. As a result, we have spent over 13 million dollars on improving our facilities, including an experiential ecology park, gardens, a regular greenhouse and an experimental greenhouse, a new Early Learning centre, a new Design space, covered outdoor areas, and a fully renovated main school, along with 11 more acres of land for future development.
Concurrently, we supported the professional development of our teachers, and now have many teachers who give workshops to other teachers on behalf of the International Baccalaureate, many more teachers with Master’s degrees, and much in the way of inquiry into teaching and learning by our teachers, who are amongst the best in the world. We spend a lot of money on teacher development and work with UBC to prepare new teachers because we recognize that the only way to improve teaching and learning is to support teachers' learning and inquiry within a professional community.
Our vision has guided our school in developing leaders – people who pursue substantial questions, are adaptable and thoughtful, are balanced and reflective, and can shape the future for themselves and society.