By Shyreen Ramsumair

The TDSB has decided that this year was (my school) Henry Kelsey’s year to do the District Review. A District Review is when principals from another school visit other Toronto District School Board (TDSB) schools and ask the students about the curriculum and learning goals we are focusing on at the moment. Well they came to our school on Friday, November 29.
To be honest it was pretty tough being stressed about this because we needed to answer in a way that made us sound “smart” and “focused.” For some it was pretty hard but our teachers prepped us in advance to the visit. Our teachers were given a sheet with sample questions that may be asked of us. Using the sheets, teachers helped all their classes answer the questions properly so we looked like we knew what we were doing. The teachers and students didn’t know when the principals would be circulating through. This caused some worry amongst everyone really. Students needed to remember what others have told us in every period we went to.
The District Review does help TDSB if you think about it. Doing this review can let the board know what should be changed, added or revised based on the information students have given them. In some cases, they didn’t even talk to students, they just walked around the room and looked at what supplies we used, what posters are hung up and some of the other work on the walls. I preferred that than them coming up and asking questions. At one time when they came to my class during our math period, we had to find the volume of a triangular prism and my group didn’t learn the formula used to solve the question. As my group started discussing about a possible way, one of the female principals asked us if all we are going to do is talk about it. We didn’t really understand what she meant by that because we were trying to remember formulas.
Anyway, we began to flip through our math text books and unfortunately there was absolutely nothing in there about calculating the volume of a triangular prism. Luckily, we found the formula in the back of our student planners. We started to write down the answer for the problem and the principal went to the other principal and they started to talk about the math textbooks. By observing this I can see that they may plan on changing something about this.
Finally, the District Review ended pretty well, better than I thought actually. The TDSB visitors came to our gym and math periods and I am glad they didn’t ask me any questions. Not that I wouldn’t know how to answer but that I would get nervous and probably answer wrong. For someone who has never experienced a District Review, I know for sure I would get nervous and start stuttering.
Anyway, thank you for reading! 

Shyrene Ramsumair is a youth reporter for the Caribbean Camera online