Heads Up - Your Monthly Communication From the Headmaster View this email in your browser Heads Up Your Monthly Communication From the Headmaster  Dear Parents, Welcome to 2016! It is exciting to see our students arrive back to our College and Academy programs for another year filled with learning and celebration. This month, I thought I would focus on the value statement - “Together: Be Kind, Be Curious, Be Well.” Together: Progress Reports: Be sure to stay informed by regularly checking our website for updates. In addition to our website, you will also be able to see the most recent photos from inside the school by following the Twitter handles: @rundlecollege or @jasonbrogers   Primary Family Skate: I am excited for the upcoming Primary Family Skate where we will once again see our Academy student leaders coming along to enjoy an afternoon of skating with some of Rundle’s youngest students!   Be Kind  Snow Angels: Before Christmas, Rundle Academy sent their students into the neighborhood to clear the walks around the school and the homes in Marda Loop. This unsolicited act of kindness warmed several hearts that day! Thank you to all the students and staff who took part. In fact, this tweet was retweeted by Mayor Nenshi and was viewed by over 16,000 people!  How to get into Harvard: I stumbled upon an interesting article in the Washington Post this past month that addresses a changing admissions landscape for some of North America’s top universities. If you are curious as to how kindness factors into garnering admission into some prestigious institutions, take a moment and give this article a quick read. Be Curious Campus Life: It has been really exciting to see how our student body has embraced co-curricular academic pursuits. Over the course of the past month, and in the coming days, we will see our students take part in Elementary Chess Competitions (involving over half the school), Speech and Debate Competitions (already having earned a Provincial Title!), TEDx Rundle Academy, STEAM robotics/coding labs, and a spectacular Elementary Science Fair. Needless to say, our students are finding ways to be curious and, ultimately, it is this curiosity that will allow them to innovate and make our world the best place it can be! Articles on Curiosity: Here are two articles from this past month that relate directly to the importance of curiosity in learning. How our brain works & Lessons from Pixar - failure, resilience and creativity. Be Well Wellness Week at Jr. Sr. High: We all know exam week can be a trying time for students. This past month, I was inspired by the efforts that Rundle College Jr. Sr. High Peer Support put into creating the conditions for student wellness in the face of stressful exams. Bullying Prevention - Wear Pink initiative: Thank you to all who are supporting the Society wide ‘Wear Pink’ initiative. As result, in late February, our campuses will be flooded with over 500 students wearing pink to raise awareness towards bullying prevention! Thank you for all your ongoing support during the first month of 2016.   Be well, Jason Rogers, Headmaster Rundle College Society  Books on the shelf this month:   “Work Rules” by Laszlo Bock “Grit to Great” by Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval “The One Thing: The Surprising Truth Behind Extraordinary Results” by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan