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Guardian Angels Middle School

SABRE Sports Offerings

Fall: Soccer/Volleyball Winter: Basketball Spring: Baseball/Softball Photo at right: Varsity Girls accepting their First Place Trophy at the end of the year tournament for the South Side Youth Organization. GO SABRES!

Guardian Angels Middle School Information

Hello to All 5th Grade Students and Parents!
There are several reasons why this newsletter is being distributed to all 5th grade students and their parents, but the key reason is that we want to make sure you have enough information to make the changes than a safe, caring, faithfilled environment GA provides to its students. Recent studies have shown that middle school students thrive better in a K-8 setting than a separate building for just junior high/middle school. There are many ways GA tries to make the middle school part of the total school community, yet also different and more age appropriate for the early teen years. Some of those ways are: ~Advisor/Advisee program ~Honor Roll for high academic achievement. ~Student led conferences ~Class schedulechanging of classrooms each 40 minutes. ~Extra-Curriculars such as Athletics, Band, Choir, Student Council, Service Club, Book Clubs, Tech Squad, School Store Workers, Creativity Festival Participants, Quiz Bowl, Young Author s Conferences, and Yearbook editors. If you have any questions about GA middle school, please do not hesitate to contact me or any of the MS teachers. We look forward to seeing you in GA Middle School.

March 2011 Volume I, Issue 1

Top Ten Reasons To Be Part of GA Middle School!

10. High expectations and achievement for students (see testing results on page 3) 9. Mass Buddies: 6th & K, 7th & 1st, 8th & 2nd 8. Field TripsCamp Long Lake and Washington, D.C. 7. More class offerings: Geography, Choir, Health, Integrated Study, Media 6. Different teachers every 40 minutes. 5. Lockers 4. Middle School Service Club 3. Seconds at lunch 2. Dances and Activity Nights And the #1 Reason to be part of GA MS 1. Three more years to develop your faith and personal relationship with God before entering High School.

Did You Know?

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s ipal rinc t P Lis ll r Ro o no H ch Mar 1 201

A Few Words From Our Alums...

Of all the students earning Honor Roll at Holy Family High School, 35% of the students were GA graduates. This makes up 67% of our grads. We have GA grads attending Notre Dame, Purdue, Drake, Creighton, Marquette, St. Thomas, St. Catherine, and several other top-notch colleges and universities.

best decision for your child s en-

GA really prepared me for the work load and also gave me a wide base of knowledge so that I could excel in all areas of high school from writing to math. GA helped me realize the importance of having a tightly knit group of friends to support you. With smaller classes you could make friends with everybody and it made me a more accepting person and someone who gets along with everyone. GA helped me grow in my faith and also made me realize that faith should be part of my everyday life. I would share that the friendships will last forever. You wont find better teachers who look out for you and prepare you better than the ones at GA. GA is a great school that gets greater as you get older and gain the privilege to experience more programs.

rollment for next fall. The middle school staff at GA is a talented and gifted group of teachers, and they look forward to working with you and your family next fall. Adolescence is a time of great change for all students. There are changes physically, emotionally, spiritually, and what better setting to deal with these major life

Many Blessings to You and Your Family! Mrs. Amy Gallus

Advisor/Advisee Program in MS
One of the ways that our teachers really get to know our Middle School Students is through the Advisor/ Advisee Program in the MS. Each student is placed with a specific teacher for the three years in middle school. This teacher will be the one you conference with two times per year, your first point of contact for your student and your childs advocate. Each homeroom is kept to a small number of students that is a mixture of 6th 8th grade students. Each year, we choose a focus for our curriculum, choose homeroom names based on a theme and develop homeroom challenges to engage the students. Service projects and character building activities are also part of homeroom time. Our Advisor/Advisee program is an essential way to keep open the lines of communication and engage students beyond the formal classroom setting as they grow and mature into young adults.

~ Guardian Angels Catholic School ~ 217 W 2nd St. Chaska, MN 55318 ~ www.gachaska.org ~ ~ (952) 227-4010 ~

ars theme : Stepp ing up to the Plate!

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Guardian Angels Middle School

New Course this YearIntegrated StudyChurches

This fall brought a new exciting curricular addition to the schedule Integrated Study. For twelve weeks, each grade in the middle school had the opportunity to combine Religion, History, Technology, and Art as they learned about Churches, components inside and out, stained glass windows, and construction. This class was added in part because we understand the importance of project based learning experiences. What will be the new integrated study course for next year? Be a sixth grader at GA this fall and find out for yourself!

Number Crunching!
All three GA Middle School Grades exceeds both State of Minnesota and Public School District #112 percentages in both Reading and Mathematics!
Percentage of Students per Grade Identified as Proficient or Higher Comparative DataNWEA Results & MCA ReadingSpring 2010
School Guardian Angels State of MN Grade 6 82.3% 71.1% 80.6% Grade 7 88.8% 66.1% 76.7% Grade 8 85.7% 68.1% 82.1%

Academics
Guardian Angels has a proven history of preparing its graduates for a successful high school experience. Some important components of that ongoing success are: MathWhen students start 6th grade, they are placed in an appropriate level of math. Our standard program takes students through 6th grade math, Pre-Algebra, and Algebra I. For students will a strong math aptitude, their program is comprised of Pre-Algebra, Algebra I, Geometry. ScienceWe have a three year rotation of key scientific study. Life Science, Earth Science, and Physical Science. So whether your student goes to Holy Family High School, they will be prepared for Biology as a freshman or Chaska/Chanhassen, they will have a solid background for Physics as a freshman. Language ArtsAll grades in GA middle school focuses on writing different lengths and styles of papers. Students will graduate with a solid knowledge of the basic five paragraph theme, as well as how to organize and prepare a longer research paper. Students will also be exposed to several types of genres in their literature component in both short story and novel lengths of reading. TechnologyIn addition to many technology integration projects in all curricular areas, each year in the middle school, students have a trimester long Media class that exposes them to a variety of technological tools that will make them successful digital natives in the world today.

Parents Weigh In On GA Middle School...

District #112

The word that comes to mind when I think about GA middle school is family. The teachers not only know my child as a student, but also as a person. I believe the teachers really care about my children. Middle school is not an easy time in a young teens life. Why wouldnt people choose a smaller, caring, more protected environment for those big change to occur? There are so many leadership opportunities for the students at GAfrom sports, to academics, to service club to reading at Mass. I love how everyone is welcome to play on the sports teams.
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Percentage of Students per Grade Identified as Proficient or Higher Comparative DataNWEA Results & MCA MathematicsSpring 2010
School Guardian Angels State of MN District #112 Grade 6 82.3% 68.9% 81.6% Grade 7 83.3% 64.4% 78.1% Grade 8 78.6 58.5% 77.1%