Leadership interview with Cheryl Boughton, St. John's-Kilmarnock School

When you become part of this community, you really feel that you've found your home, you feel like you belong. I think often independent schools talk about the community being a special element of their identity. But it really surprised me just how strong the community is and how warm and welcoming everyone was. And it's not just toward me, it's toward anyone who joins the community. New people very quickly say the same thing as people who have been here for a long time, that the community is something that's really outstanding here.

So everybody all comes into the dining hall and we eat delicious food. But more importantly, we share time with each other. [Lunch is] a technology-free environment. So everyone leaves their devices somewhere else and we all come together as a community and we eat lunch. And I think that that's a really interesting time of day. And I find, whenever I talk to other people, I'm amazed that we're not really talking about school, we're talking about life or we're talking about something interesting that happened to us. 

We're not an enormous school. So even when we talk about the full school, I don't think it feels like you get lost. Everyone finds their place.

So it is beautiful, 36 acres that's in the countryside. So we're surrounded by farmers’ fields. There's a horse farm next to us. So we really have beautiful views all around us. When you drive in through the campus you see many different playing fields. We have a beautiful pond that is quite spectacular. So we have a boat house. We have canoes and kayaks, and students can take part in those sorts of water-based activities. And then the main building itself. One of the things I love about the school is that we're all within one school building. So I can be walking around the school and one minute I'm in JK, and then the next minute I can be in a Grade 12 class.

I think that's another value that is very much instilled in our students. I think that there's a huge culture of respect here, respect for each other, respect for their teachers, respect for our traditions, and also respect for other people's ideas and opinions and being curious about trying to understand what someone else's point of view might be. It might be different from your own.

We're an unapologetically academic school. So we do have the IB program that goes from Junior Kindergarten all the way to Grade 12, and all of our students in Grade 11 and Grade 12 take the IB diploma program. We know that we offer a really strong academic program supported by outstanding teachers.

On the one hand, [academics are] absolutely a part of who we are, but it's not the only thing that we are. We really encourage our students to be very well rounded. So while academics take priority here, so do sports and healthy, active living, and we have a really strong arts program, too. We really challenge our students to reach their potential and develop all facets of themselves, while still keeping in mind the importance of their academics and of course, the success that comes from those academics and the opportunities that those academics afford.

We've got a really great learning support program. Sometimes we have students that come to us with particular learning challenges, but we do feel that we're really able to support that as long as the student is motivated. And I think that that's what it comes down to is that you can succeed here, provided that you've got the motivation and provided that your parents are willing to support you with your academic goals.

I think that the IB program itself has benefits in terms of its philosophy and approach to education. We're called a continuum school because we have the three programs: the primary program, the middle year's program, and the diploma program. I think that there is value in participating in the primary years program because that's the foundation of the whole IB program. In particular, students can look forward to Grade 6, to the end of the [primary] program, to the exhibition. So this is a project that students work on individually and they form their own inquiry question and then they follow that through to find the answers to their own questions

We've got a really active parents association, and so they participate in a wide variety of activities. There's also some fundraising that they do both for the school and also for other good causes as well. People are able to participate in those when they have the time. We also have something every fall which is absolutely amazing. It's called Eagle Mania and it's a JK to Grade 12 house competition that takes place outside, and it's organized by our Parents’ Association.  And if parents are working and they have a busy life, it's still possible for them to take part in what we're doing.

My own personal rule is that if it takes more than five sentences to explain in an email, it's a conversation. We just talk to people and we listen to what they have to say, and we put forward what we have to say, and we just try to find common ground and try to find a way forward. People are reasonable, and they often have questions or concerns, and we want to answer them. So it really is an open door policy, and we encourage people to feel that they can contact us if they have any concerns.

[SJK is part of] a well established community, but we are also home to a lot of high tech companies, and there's a lot of really creative and innovative things that are happening in this region. I think that if SJK was a person, SJK would have that ability to kind of think outside the box and be nimble and be able to do things differently, but without losing sight of their core values. I would also say, too, that SJK would, if it were a person, be able to participate in the sport that it really loves and at the same time be able to engage in the arts as well and showcase their creativity in that way. I would say [SJK] has the right balance between being focused and determined, but also being able to have fun, too, and having a light hearted side to itself.

A big trend is people moving out of those big areas and moving here and getting a different lifestyle. So we're going through a period of growth. There's tremendous interest in the school—in where we're going to go from here. We're just at the point of creating a new strategic plan and looking very carefully at where we want to see growth in the future. We will be building on our strong academic program, looking to make sure that we're offering the very best academics in this region. Our next priority would be looking at ways that we can further support our strong arts program and looking at other things that we can be offering our students in addition to the very strong program that's already available.

It's always good that there's choice, that there is the right school for every family. I encourage people to look broadly at all their options and reach out to us to really understand what we offer as a school. If it's possible, come and visit us because the best way to learn more about us is to actually be here and to experience it firsthand. Look at the students and to look at what they're doing. Look at how they seem. Do they seem happy? Do they seem engaged in what they're doing? If possible, if you're able to talk to the students, ask what they're doing and hear firsthand from them what the learning activity is. We have exceptional teachers. I think lots of independent schools have exceptional teachers, but does it translate into the student experience and are they really learning what they need to be learning? You can often see a lot when you look at the students.