Combined Choral Ensembles Present ConcertUnder the direction of Brian Moore, the combined choral ensembles of Peterborough Elementary School, Great Brook, South Meadow, and ConVal High School presented a chorus concert in the gymnasium of ConVal Regional High School on March 21, 2023.
GBS Band RehearsalAhead of the combined band concert on Monday, March 20, Ms. Fifield rehearses with members of the GBS and CVHS band ensembles in the ConVal High School Gymnasium.
Combined GBS, SMS, & CVHS Band Ensembles RehearseThe combined band ensembles of Great Brook, South Meadow, and ConVal High School rehearse a Disney medley. The concert, which had to be postponed because of the snow storm, will take place tonight, March 20, at 6:30 pm in the ConVal High School gym.
State ChampionshipThe Awesome Potatoes did a great job at the State Championship and qualified for the World Championship in Dallas, TX!
Fire SafetyThe 8th graders visited the ConVal Career Fair and had fun trying on the Firefighters' gear.
The Awesome Potatoes were indeed awesome yesterday and not only won a trophy but also earned one of the 6 invitations available to MS teams from NH/VT to the VEX IQ World Championship in Dallas as well as a $1200 scholarship to cover the entry fee for Worlds.
The students in FACS class participated in another successful round of Cookie Wars. The winners of this round created a delicious Nutella sandwich cookie!
Great Brook School's Maryanne Cullinan recently collaborated with colleagues from around the world and presented research at the Transformative Play Initiative Seminar that was held at Uppsala University in Gotland, Sweden.
Cullinan, who has been teaching in ConVal since 2005, has been pursuing her Ph.D. at Lesley University and is focusing her research on role-playing games (RPG) as a way to maximize educational accessibility. Over the past year, she’s collaborated with Rich Oxenham of Bath, England, who founded Hatchling Games and is the creator of the RPG Inspirisles.
Inspirisles is a completely original all-ages Tabletop RPG promoting storytelling, empathy and Deaf awareness with an emphasis on cooperation.
Inspirisles is designed to teach hearing students basic sign language and deaf awareness. Cullinan used the game as part of an elective course for seventh and eighth graders at Great Brook. Those students’ experiences served as the subject for Cullinan and Oxenham’s presentation highlighting the use of the game to build cultural awareness and teach American sign language to middle school students.
“Teachers need to be increasingly creative to meet the needs of students, who will need thinking skills as well as content in the real world," Cullinan said. "Roleplaying games are an academically understudied pedagogy, even though teachers have seen them do wonders with kids. It's amazing our little school can be part of research and journal articles that help forward the use of RPGs all over the world!”
In addition to her work with Inspirisles, Cullinan has been collaborating closely with Jennifer Genova, a middle school social studies teacher in Salem to develop a theoretical matrix meant to help educators select or create RPGs that maximize their students’ social-emotional or academic development. Their shared work was the subject of a second presentation at last week’s conference, which focused on analyzing RPGs and their use in educational settings.
“I am very proud of Maryanne’s commitment to discovering creative ways to engage students in rigorous academics and cultural competency,” Great Brook School Principal Kat Foecking said. “She is the kind of out-of-the-box thinker that drives educational innovation, which directly benefits our students.”
The Awesome Potatoes were indeed awesome yesterday and not only won a trophy but also earned one of the 6 invitations available to MS teams from NH/VT to the VEX IQ World Championship in Dallas as well as a $1200 scholarship to cover the entry fee for Worlds.
The Contoocook Valley School District budget vote will be held on Tuesday, March 28, 2023. Below are the places in the town of your residence where you can cast your vote:
Spring sports sign ups are happening now! All 6th, 7th and 8th graders can sign up! Ask your child to look for information in the cafeteria during their lunch block.
The Mission of the Great Brook School community is to foster the growth of creative thinkers and confident learners who see the world through a compassionate lens.
The Vision of Great Brook School is to collaborate to create an inclusive, caring, and responsive environment that provides innovative and rigorous opportunities for learning and personal growth.