History
The name Maple Creek is taken from a 3.5 km tributary of the Coquitlam River that runs by our school. It is an important producer of Coho Salmon and Rainbow trout and is maintained by the Maple Creek Stream Keepers.
From 1977 to 1997 our school was Hastings Junior High. In September 1997, we reopened as École Maple Creek Middle School. Instead of grades 8-10 we are now grades 6-8. Our current student population is 650 students and this year 80 students are in the French Immersion Program.
Location
We are located in the Tri-Cities area. We are located on the north side of the Fraser River, a short distance east of Vancouver, in beautiful British Columbia. The three cities of Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, and Port Moody, are known collectively as the Tri-Cities. Here's some regional history from our local Chamber of Commerce.
What is special about Middle School?
One of the important differences between junior high schools and middle schools is not the grades it's the teams. Our school is divided into six class teams who share common teachers for their core subject areas. These teachers plan their units together for the team as well as team activities outside the classroom. These communities within our whole school give students a better chance to make connections with peers and teachers.
Each team has a resource teacher who works to assist the classroom teachers in delivering curriculum to all the students within the team. As well they are highly involved in the planning and delivery of curriculum for the team throughout the year.
For a Grade 8 student it might be like this: if Mr. Pearse was your homeroom teacher you would get him for Math, Science, CAPP, Advisory and French. He also teaches PE so you might get him for PE or you may not. You would also get another teacher from your team in Social Studies and English. In Explorations you would have a number of new teachers. Generally it means you see less teachers, particularly in the core subject areas, even though you are taking a lot of new classes.