Detailed Schedule
1:30 - 2:15 pm
Worship & Welcome
2:15 - 2:20 pm
Transition
2:20 - 3:20 pm
- The Best Laid Plans… don’t matter! – Dan Duncan
- Home Based Learning at HCOS: The Year, The Tips, and Your Values – Jeff Laird
- Grad Requirements & How to Meet Them! – Anthony Kuchma
3:20 - 3:35 pm
Break
3:35 - 4:35pm
- Creating School Strategies for Unique Brains – Dan Duncan
- Flex Academy: Innovating in Hybrid Education – Bri Dyck
- Grad Q&A Follow-up – Anthony Kuchma
4:35 - 4:50 pm
Door Prizes and Closing of Afternoon
Dinner Break
7:00 - 8:30 pm
- The Power of Story – Sigmund Brouwer
- Grad Games Night – Anthony Kuchma
Workshops
Prioritizing, organizing, scheduling; none of these planning skills matters unless your brain activates those fancy brain skills known as “Executive Functions” to turn your plans into actions. Specifically, EF’s help us control our attention, memory, responses, and emotions; and help us track time, set priorities, manage tasks, and successfully transition between activities or places.
Join Dan Duncan, ADHD Coach, Consultant, and Academic Strategists, to learn all about EF’s and how EF’s operate differently than expected when a student navigates life with ASD, ADHD, Learning Disabilities, anxiety, or depression.
Later, in his follow-up learning lab, you can discover how to create effective strategies that support these unexpected Executive Function differences.
Listen as Mr. Kuchma explains the ins and outs of the grad program for the 2023/2024 school year. All requirements will be covered and options will be discussed for how to get the most out of your high school years. Grades 9-12 and guardians are welcome.
Based on the content presented earlier in the day, this session will explain how to build strategies tailored for students whose Executive Functions operate differently than expected. Walk-through scenarios will familiarize participants with the perspective and the process that gets these students from frustration to fruition.
Flex Academy is a new hybrid school that is beginning in fall of 2023 in Kelowna with full-time enrollment options for JK- Grade 9 and both full-time and cross-enrolment options for 10-12. If you are an HCOS family interested in campus options or want to learn more about Flex, come on out to hear from the Director of Flex Academy, Bri Dyck.
Bring your questions, concerns, inquiries, and hopefully excitement to Mr. Kuchma as he breaks down the most common questions about curriculum and courses.
Grades 9-12 and guardians are welcome.
Because humans are wired for stories, it is one of the best motivators for parents to raise children who love literature and are motivated to improve their writing at all levels. More than that, however, STORY connects, and when families tap into this, the results go far beyond elevated reading and writing skills. Plus, there’s one surprise factor that will make a huge difference in learning, and everyone in the family will LOVE the justification to use it daily to raise not only literacy skills, but all other areas of curriculum.
Mr. Kuchma’s top core value is relationship; come hang out with him and play some games and get to know just how nerdy he really is. You’re sure to be engaged and entertained. (bring your favourite easy board game or card game and Mr. Kuchma will too).
Grades 9-12 and guardians are welcome to join.
Conference Starts In...
Speakers
ADHD Coach & Academic Strategist
Dan Duncan is an ADHD Coach/Consultant associated with the BC Interior ADHD Clinic in Kelowna, BC, and the designated Academic Strategist for students diagnosed with ADHD who attend UBC Okanagan. His private practice offers coaching and consulting for individuals with ADHD, as well as their parents, spouses, and educators.
Dan lives successfully with ADHD, and together, he and his wife raised two sons; one with ADHD, and one without. This unique perspective provides Dan’s with an understanding of ADHD from the Inside Out; his presentations reflect this knowledge.
Director of K-9 Program
Jeff has been with HCOS since the school started in 2004. He has worked as a Support Teacher and Regional Administrator in the school and is currently the Director of the K-9 Program. In addition to Jeff’s experience working with families that have partnered with HCOS in their home education journeys, he has been a home education parent himself for the past 14 years. Starting in 2008 when their oldest son, Maclean (19), entered kindergarten, home education in the Laird house just wrapped up this year when their youngest son, Calum (16), started attending the local Christian school. Along with their two boys, Jeff and his wife Aleece live in Kamloops where they plan to stay for a long, long time enjoying the Interior of BC and the life they have been blessed with.
Grad Advisor – Interior
I currently serve HCOS as a Grad Advisor for families who reside within the interior of BC and additionally work as an educator teaching high school Math and Science. Ever since I received my Bachelor of Education I’ve taught at HCOS and it has truly been a blessing. I reside in Kelowna where my wife and I are currently raising 5 young kiddos with the oldest having just turned 7.
Director of Flex Academy
Bri was a teacher and administrator at Heritage Christian School (campus) for 9 years before joining HCOS last spring. She has been married to her husband, Justin, for 12 years and they have two kids – Jaime (7) and Ian (5) who are both enrolled in Flex and excited for what’s to come. As a family, they love camping in the summers and skiing in the winter. Bri has loved being a part of the broader HCOS team and excited to share with our community more about Flex Academy and the unique way it will express the vision, mission, and values of HCOS.
Photo credit to Rebecca Wellman (Photo property of Orca)
As the bestselling author of dozens of titles, with over 4 million books in print in multiple languages, Sigmund Brouwer writes for both children and adults. Sigmund instills confidence in even the most reluctant young writers and ensures they are having fun and staying excited all the while. He draws upon a diverse range of methods and strategies to help young writers find and refine their unique voices.
He has won the American Christy Book of the Year for best Christian novel, and the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Young-Adult Mystery in Canada, as well as being a finalist twice in the prestigious TD Children’s Literature Awards. Over the last two decades, he reached more than a million students across North America with his Story Ninja presentations.