September 2023

Did you know that Woodstock Christian School follows Responsive Classroom practices? Responsive Classroom is “a student-centered, social and emotional learning approach to teaching and discipline.” This means that we have morning meetings, a quiet time, and frequent brain breaks. We also begin and end the day together, and focus on building a community in our classrooms that everyone can learn in. We are a school that greets your child at the door, because we know how important it is for students to be known as individuals.

At our PD day last Friday, we spent some time learning about how to better implement these practices. We shared strategies that work for our classrooms, and discussed ways that we can improve.. Our goal is to be a school that is able to meet the physical, emotional, spiritual, and academic needs of our students, and we believe following Responsive Classroom practices will help us do that.

If you want to learn more about Responsive Classroom, feel free to check out their website at  (https://www.responsiveclassroom.org/).

Our theme this year is “Praise the LORD” based on Psalm 147:1. God commands us in the Bible to praise Him, and we see many examples of praise. David plays the harp and wrote many psalms of praise. We’re also told that creation praises God, just by being creation. Moreover, Jesus gives us examples of praising God with His words, actions, and through prayer. Clearly, there are many ways to praise God.

In education, we know well that all students are different. They all have unique academic needs and strengths, as well as unique interests. Students also love different things: some love math, while others love music, while still others love reading and writing. These are good things because God made us this way. Can these gifts be used to praise God? Yes!

One of our hopes for students this year is to help them recognize that they can use their unique gifts in acts of praise. We sometimes think that worship is only for church, or only for chapel, but the Bible tells us that all of life can be an act of worship, so long as the desire of our heart is to do our work to the glory of God. Colossians 3:23-24 says “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord…It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” This means that we can praise God all day with the learning we do at Woodstock Christian School. What a joy this is!

                                                                     Mike Vander Kooi, Principal