What's Happening at Sydenham High School
March 2026
Hello SHS Golden Eagles and Families,
We have been busy this month with the start up of a new semester and the wrap up of our winter sports season. Today, our Boys Varsity Hockey team goes for KASSAA Gold at 2:30 PM Invista against Holy Cross. We hope to bring back the championship for a second year in a row!
Our EOSSA Sr Girls Volleyball team earned GOLD this past week on the SHS court and qualified for OFSAA. We are so proud and wish them luck next week.
Our EOSSA Sr Boys Basketball team competed at EOSSA and came home with Silver this past week, losing to a very strong Smiths Falls team. Our boys showed determination and effort, despite coming up short.
This was also the first year we had an Alpine Team. After placing second in the team event at EOSSA, our Snowboarding team attended OFSAA and came in 14th in the team event and Brady McKercher was 37th overall in racing. Our Alpine Ski team also had an excellent season finishing third at EOSSA and narrowly missing a berth to OFSAA.
We also need to celebrate the success of our students who attended Limestone Skills. Audrey Batemen came first in the Baking competition, Jacob O'Reilly came first in Computer Aided Manufacturing. Jacob and Audrey will have the opportunity to represent SHS at Skills Ontario in Toronto in May. Well done Eagles! Congrats to our other students who attended and competed. You can read more about Limestone Skills here.
Finally, a few reminders:
Our Youth and Money event is scheduled for next Wed. Mar. 11th. We will have a keynote speaker and two break out sessions: saving for post secondary (RESP, TFSA) and one on Scholarships and Bursaries. Admission is free, event starts at 6:30 PM in our library.
SHS Semi Formal is coming up on Friday March 27, 6-9pm. Come out for a starry night. Students need to have purchased a student card for the event (available in School-Day) and cost is $5 per ticket.
Upcoming Dates
Mar. 5 - Novice Girls VB Tournament at SHS
Mar. 5 - STC Field trip to Limestone Lanes
Mar. 6 - Grad Photo Retakes
Mar. 10 - Eastern Regional College presentation period 2
Mar. 11 - Youth and Money Workshop
Mar. 16 - 20 - March Break
Mar. 25 - Olympian Jay Dearborn at SHS
Mar. 27 - Semi-Formal Dance 6 - 9 PM
Spotlight on Our Math Department
SHS math classes are hard at work, building skills and consistently achieving highly. SHS math classes are filled with collaboration through the use of whiteboards and group discussions. Students often learn as much from each other as they do from their teachers. Collaboration is a skill that math teachers emphasize which students will take with them well beyond high school, into their careers and daily lives.
Grade 9 math teachers also hosted an EQAO Fun Day where students came into school on a Saturday to practice for their exam. With all this effort, comes consistently high results. SHS EQAO scores (71% above level 3) are far above the board (55%) and the province (58%). We have been the top scoring English-speaking public school in the Kingston area for three years running. Even the Fraser Institute rated our school 158th of the 735 secondary schools in the province where the “average level of achievement on the grade 9 EQAO assessment in mathematics” is a significant criterion for their assessment (Cowley et al. 5).
SHS math teachers are busy supporting students outside the classroom in a variety of ways as well. For example, department head Shane Cook runs the Syd’s Hockey League and coaches the boy’s hockey league, Brett Walsh and Adrian Grew coach basketball and bring teams to many tournaments. Pauline Farmer coached our field hockey team to a silver medal, Michelle Plumb leads students council in their efforts to run school wide events, Steven Lee is leading our Trivia team to their first competition in Ottawa on February 7th and Tyler Elliott was the assistant director of the play Murder by the Book which helped raise money for the school library. Our math teachers strive to help students learn and achieve both inside and outside the classroom.
2025-2026 LDSB School Year Calendar
A PDF version of the 2025-2026 School Year Calendar is available online.
Concussion Protocol
SHS is committed to student safety, injury prevention, and well-being, and supports concussion awareness, prevention, identification, management, tracking, and training. Our point of contact is Ms. Ash Ward, Vice Principal.
Our LDSB Concussion Policy/Concussion Code of Conduct is here as well to ensure we work together to support our students if a concussion is suspected or diagnosed.
Allergen Awareness -
Nut-Free & Scent Free School
Threat/Risk Assessment Notification and Process
The Limestone District School Board and community partners are committed to making our schools safe for students and staff. As a result, schools will respond to all student behaviours that pose a potential risk to other students, staff, and community members. The Community Violence Threat Risk Assessment Process is designed to be proactive in developing intervention plans that address the emotional and physical safety of those involved. Families are asked to review the steps of a Threat/Risk Assessment online.
