| It looks like spring has arrived and our students will have plenty of opportunity and energy to enjoy warmer weather. With that, we will be having more physical education classes outside. Already there are more soccer games, lacrosse and various tag games being played. In April we enjoyed having swim lessons for our Kindergarten through grade 5 classes at Sir Winston Churchill Pool. We greatly appreciate the effort our volunteers have made to join us at the pool and the many other off-site and on-site activities that our students partake in. We look forward to taking time to celebrate our volunteers and show our appreciation for their efforts by hosting our Volunteer Tea on May 31, 2018. Something new for our school is the traverse climbing (rambling) wall in our gym. Teachers are being trained May 4 and 11 to understand safety and climbing techniques. We are hoping that students learn to love the wall in a short time.
Just a reminder, we have the Grade 6 Provincial Achievement Test for Language Arts Writing on May 10. This Provincial Achievement Test is a summation of student’s writing ability up to the time of writing the test. Although this is a one-time test that evaluates what they can do on only one day, in general, it can be a good test of their ability. If your child is in Grade 6, please ensure they are well rested and eat a wholesome meal for breakfast that day.
We are well on our way to working to organize staff for next year. We have made strong considerations about the teaching roster and are now waiting for the staffing process to continue so that we have a final organized staff roster. Again we are hoping to have two classes of each grade in both the English and Mandarin Bilingual programs. We have thought out some exceptions to this possibility in the event that numbers of students change so that we can provide more where needed. The classes will be structured in as equitable a fashion as possible.
If parents wish to provide input into their choice of teacher for their child, a brief letter can be sent to me by June 1st stating your choice of teacher, and a positively worded reason for the selection. A staff roster will be sent out prior to the deadline for requests. Please give good educational reasons and avoid negative comments referring to staff and other students. In most cases the requests are already in place but in the event that there is a sound educational reason for not placing a student with a particular teacher, parents will be contacted and the request may not happen. Please remember that having a child with their friend is often a good reason to separate students because they may spend considerable time socializing and not focusing on their studies. Also keep in mind that the School Act makes clear reference to final placement of students in their classes as the responsibility of the principal.
Sincerely,
David Watson
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