Hockaday Highlights

Thank you all for visiting Hockaday, scheduling testing and interviews, and completing your applications over the past few weeks! I hope you'll enjoy a glimpse of campus life in this week's Hockaday Highlights.

Our prekindergarten girls have been learning about the Olympics and made rings and torches to kick off the games that start later this week. Girls will try some modified winter games in class such as ice skating on wax paper. We will take this time to embed some of the Hockaday values like friendship, empathy, and perseverance into the games. The Third Graders just performed the play La Bella y La Bestia (Beauty and the Beast) in Spanish. All props and costumes were made at school or at home for the production. Our Upper School Model United Nations (UN) Club recently competed at Harvard University and they head to Georgetown University next. Students from the Hockaday and St. Mark's Classes of 2026 volunteered at the North Texas Food Bank on Saturday to sort and pack 12,481 pounds of food, which translates into 10,400 meals. Five of our seniors will play athletics in college and they officially "signed" today. Two Middle School Robotics teams just returned from the First Lego League Championship Competition where the "Hockabots" won first place. Finally, Lower, Middle and Upper School teachers and students experienced Google Expeditions Augmented Reality a few weeks ago and they made a great video to capture the experience.

There is a lot happening at Hockaday, and we know you are busy too. We want to remind you that the application deadline was Friday, January 26 and thank you for completing your application. You may review your checklist via the parent portal to make sure all teacher recommendation forms, parent and student questionnaires, and transcripts have been received. You may also visit our website to read up to the minute news stories and other admission information.

All my best,

Maryanna Phipps
Director of Admission and Enrollment Management

Click to login to the Parent Portal

30 Teachers and 418 Students test out Google Expedition Augmented Reality

Students from all three divisions experienced Augmented Reality (AR) during a day with Google. In the summer of 2017, Google introduced the app Google Expeditions AR (also in beta). They announced that schools would be able to participate in the pioneer program starting in the fall.

After applying to participate in the Google Expedition AR in November, Hockaday was invited to participate in January 2018. Google for Education offered a one-day option with 20 timeslots of 30 minutes each. We were allowed to combine classes to maximize the number of students/teachers participating in the experience. Google provided all the equipment and required that all participating teachers attend a mandatory 30-minute training on the morning of the event.

Google has not yet released this AR app. AR and VR (virtual reality) take learning beyond looking at pictures in books or videos on a computer screen. Thank you, Google for allowing us to experience this adventure! Click the video below to see what happened!

Hockaday Model UN Competes at Harvard University

Nineteen Upper School students competed at the Harvard University Invitational on January 25-28. All schools that participate have to apply and then be invited to Harvard. Hockaday has competed at this conference for the past eight years. We are the only school from Texas, and one of only two all-girls schools represented. The Model UN Club will head to Georgetown University for their next competition.

Seven Girls Chosen for All-State Choir

The All-State audition process for high school choir students leads ultimately to qualification in one of four All-State Choirs that perform at the annual TMEA Clinic/Convention: Treble Choir, Tenor-Bass Choir, Mixed Choir and Small School Mixed Choir. There are also 11 Hockaday orchestra girls who were selected to be in the All-State Orchestra and Band. We are proud of all these talented young women and enjoyed watching them perform last week at the Eisemann Center.

Robotics Team Wins First Place Among 500 other Teams

In early January, our Middle School Robotics teams competed at the First Lego League (FLL) regional qualifier at Williams High School in Plano. Out of all thirty-six teams, the top ten teams advanced, and three major category awards were given. Team "Hockabots" won the Robot Design award. This award recognizes a team that designs a mechanically sound robot, uses outstanding programming principles, and utilizes a well-developed strategy to design and build an innovative, high performing robot. Team "Hocka ‘scuse me?" won the Core Values award. This award recognizes a team whose members show strong communication, effective problem solving, excellent time management, as well as extraordinary enthusiasm and spirit.

On January 20, "The Hockabots" and "Hocka ‘scuse me?" went to the Super-Qualifier in Grand Saline and competed among sixty other teams. They won awards again and advanced to the FLL North Texas Championship which was this past weekend. All sixty teams started in a pool of 500 teams.

"Hocka’ scuse me?" won the Core Values: Teamwork Award and the "Hockabots" came in first place out of all 500 teams. They won the top award: First Place Champions Award. This award recognizes a team that embodies the FLL experience, by fully embracing Core Values while achieving excellence and innovation in both the Robot Game and Project. We will be headed to the World Championship, which will be in Houston from April 18th-21st. The World Championship will include top teams from all over the world and we are ready to win! We are so proud of these girls. It is an absolutely amazing accomplishment!

Fourth Graders Create a Bookmark Book-Light

Create, Collaborate, and Innovate (CCI), our fourth grade Maker Education course, meets every Day 6 (once in a rotation) in the Idea Lab space in the Centennial Science Building. We created a short video of students fusing the arts and sciences as they explored the world of e-textiles, or “sewing with circuits,” to create a bookmark book-light. Click here to view the video.

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11600 Welch Road
Dallas, TX | 75229 US

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