Maple Leaf Mission Statement

The School’s purpose is clearly affirmed in the mission statement found on page 5 of the MLES handbook,“Maple Leaf Educational System’s goal is to blend the best of the East and West and provide an excellent quality educational program that prepares the students well, regardless of race or country of origin, for the global world of tomorrow” (1.1_2). This statement has been revised from 2013 (1.1_3) and is revisited frequently during stakeholder meetings in Dalian. Certain elements such as “blend the best educational practices of the East and the West”, “a high quality educational program with a global focus”, “equip international students for success in post-secondary studies”, and “enable students to develop as global citizens and leaders”

It goes on to establish educational practices that promote a strong work ethic, strict discipline, memorization skills and drive for excellence as well as higher level thinking skills, problem-solving approaches and group work (1.2_1). The School demonstrates commitment to our four core values of “Respect, Responsibility, Hard Work and Honesty”by frequently reminding students through assemblies, displaying it throughout our school in posters and signs, and by incorporating it into the School’s Student Planner (1.2_2). These philosophies and values are shared with our staff through meetings and discussions (1.2_3) with an emphasis on developing and maintaining the School’s academic culture. The School provides a challenging curriculum as outlined by the government of British Columbia’s Prescribed Learning Outcomes (1.2_4) and the government of British Columbia’s handbook of procedures (1.2_5). The School is inspected yearly to assure these high qualities of educational standards are being maintained (1.2_6). The School’s new “Maple Leaf Global Curriculum”(1.2_7) builds on these practices that include “performing at high academic ability, communicate with English proficiency, apply higher-level thinking skills, exhibit traits of a global citizen, and demonstrate leadership qualities”. The goal is to provide system wide curricular consistency in areas such as English language acquisition, global content, critical thinking and reflection, and ethical and social responsibilities. Designated teaching strategies within the curriculum are designed for English language learners by the use of the following strategies: Visual exemplars, scaffolding lessons, think-pair-share (or Partner Talk),vocabulary enhancement, clear lesson goal-setting, frequent quick understanding checks, clear speaking supported by hand gestures and body movement,