Dear Grizzly Families,
I can hardly believe that we have only two more weeks of school until the Winter Break. These last few months have been full of a variety of amazing learning opportunities for every one of our students and they all deserve some time off to rest, play and be with family and friends over the holidays. Along with the support of our amazing staff, they should be proud of the work they have put forth to help create a strong, caring, and collaborative environment for students to learn and achieve success, and with an ever-increasing amount of positive energy from students and staff at the school, I cannot wait to see what the new year will have in store for us.
I am extremely proud of the work our students put forth every day in their class and at home. As I walk the hallways each day, or visit classrooms to observe various lessons, I continue to be amazed of the level of student engagement, as well as their commitment to thriving academically in all our classes. Our teachers have worked tirelessly throughout this time, supporting their classrooms and every one of their students and, they too, deserve a time to rest, play and be with family and friends over the holidays.
My hope for the remainder of the school year, is that everyone continues to stay healthy, happy, and safe. I know all the staff at Glamorgan cannot wait to see all our students’ strengths emerge as we are heading into the second half of the school year. As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact the school and speak to either Ms. Dillenbeck or myself.
Parent Teacher Conferences
Our recent Parent-Teacher Conferences were held virtually again this year, and we are pleased to say they were very well attended by parents and students. Most of our parents had the opportunity to sign-up, but unfortunately, some of our families were unable to book a time or had difficulty navigating the system. If you were unable to meet with your child's teacher, please reach out to them through email to arrange a time to meet with them online or in person.
PowerSchool, Brightspace D2L and Google Classroom
Ongoing communication between the home and school is important for student success. Junior High Teachers are using PowerSchool to support real time communication of student progress and continue to update their Brightspace D2L shell and/or Google Classroom with updated assignments and assessments. For our Elementary classes, using PowerSchool is relatively new, and most teachers are in the learning phase using this tool. However, all Grades 1-9 will be using PowerSchool to enter summative marks and report cards will once again be made available online. Most of our Elementary classes are using Google Classroom, as well as classroom agendas and/or emailing to share communication with families. If you have not yet created your MyCBE/PowerSchool account, please access the CBE website (cbe.ab.ca/support/Pages/MyCBE-PowerSchool-Creating-Account.aspx) to find information and tutorials on creating your MyCBE/PowerSchool account. This is also an excellent time to remind everyone that all report cards will be available digitally this year and you will need to access your account to view your child’s report card. Report Cards will be available to view starting on Monday January 31, 2022.
Online Activity at Home
We continue ask for parents’ and guardians’ support as we continue to work on educating our students and families while they navigate the various worlds of social media. We are finalizing new programs and digital
citizenship lessors for our Grade 6-9 students, and we will share any information that may be beneficial to our parent community, as our understanding grows. I continue to encourage all families, Elementary students included, to have an open policy at home, where parents have access to all streams of communication that they can and should be monitoring online. The most popular amongst our Junior High students is Discord,
School Safety
We have had several concerns sent in regarding traffic safety at both morning drop-off and afternoon pick-up at the school. Below is important feedback gathered below from our Grade 6 traffic patrollers, safety supervisors, students, and families. We kindly ask that you please consider the safety of our students, by following the school signage and following the city traffic laws
• Drivers doing U-turns in the playground zone
• Drivers speeding in the playground zones
• Drivers parking on the opposite side of the road/against the traffic/in the opposing lane
• Drivers leading the students to cross in places other than the cross walk
• Drivers double parking to drop students off
• Drivers dropping off in the bus zone
• Drivers not aware of the city posted traffic signs
• Drivers ignoring the school signs and ignoring the city posted signs
• Drivers dropping students off in the cross walk
Glamorgan Celebrations
Home Reading Program
Our home reading program is continuing to have success and thanks to our parent volunteers, we can help build on our reading program for our division 1 students with the support of our families at home.
Staff Lunch Provided by Glamorgan Families
A big thank you goes out to our parent council and our own volunteer parents for making such a fabulous lunch for our teachers in the first Thursday of Parent Teacher Interviews. The food and drinks were outstanding and we cannot thank you enough for your generosity – it really means a lot.
FunScrip Fundraiser
From School Council...
Our sincere gratitude goes out to the families who were able to participate in purchasing gift cards to help raise money for our School Council. We have made $1000 through the FundScrip fundraiser, which is great! The funds will support School Council investments at Glamorgan School, including Home Reading, RazKids, Jump Math, IXL, Science Fair, Sports Day, Patrols,
staff appreciation, teacher-driven spend for each grade and for specialty areas (band, music, French, library, etc.) … and more
Thank you for all your support so far!
Minecraft Minecraft Club has just wrapped up. 83 students joined the club from K - 9, and they met online each Wednesday from home at 5 PM with Mrs. Schmidt as the facilitator.
Student Feedback:
'It was pretty fun, it was challenging.'
'I really liked how they let it be really creative.'
'Minecraft Club makes us inspired by other people's builds and it helps inspire young minds.'
The Minecraft Education - ' Level Up Calgary!' contest winners from Glamorgan School are:
Adneen Z. - Division1 - Winning Submission
Azria Z. - Division 2 - Winning Submission
Noor D. - Division 2 - Honorable Mention
Max L. - Division 3 - Winning Submission
The winning submissions will be entered into the CBE-wide contest and the system-wide winners from each division will be announced in February.
Congratulations on a job well built!
Science Fair
December 2, 2021
Dear Parents and Guardians,
Yesterday was the first meeting of the Glamorgan School Science Fair (GSSF). It was wonderful to see so many students online. Thank you for your flexibility and understanding as we get used to these new online formats. We wanted to send out this message as we recognize that some students were unable to make the first meeting and we want to include as many students as possible by providing the following updates:
- All further communication, including meeting updates and Google Meet Codes, will occur on our blog: http://gssciencefair.weebly.com/
- Any student who wishes to join the GSSF may still join as long as they read the slides and complete Assignment 1 by end of day Monday.
- By completing Assignment 1, your child agrees to meet the GSSF expectations outlined in last night’s meeting.
- We will be meeting Thursday, December 9 and Thursday, December 16 at 4:30 pm.
- We recognize some students take the bus and arrive home late. As our meetings are around an hour, we cannot shift the meeting time.
-We ask those students arriving late to join the Google Meet as soon as possible and know that we are understanding as to why they have arrived late.
- We encourage students to focus on completing an amazing science fair project rather than focus on going to CYSF.
- Please be flexible and patient as we use this new online science fair platform.
Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns - we ask that you send all inquiries to Mr. Rip at jmrip@cbe.ab.ca.
Scientifically yours,
Mr. Rip and Mr. Klaassen
Community Building – Calgary Food Drive December 1st – December 13th
From Ms. Dillenbeck....
Glamorgan is hosting a school-wide food drive and virtual fundraiser. The food drive continues next week and until December 13th, 2021. We are partnering with Calgary Food Drive to accomplish this goal. The drive is looking for several types of Pasta. Our boxes are starting to fill up!! Way To Go Grizzlies!! Below are theme day suggestions.
*Macaroni Monday *Penne Tuesday *Linguine Wednesday *Spaghetti Thursday *Fettuccine Friday
Along with the pasta, we are hosting a virtual fundraiser.
Please use the link below to donate.
https://www.canadahelps.org/en/dn/m/67353/donation
At the end of the fundraiser and food drive, the class with the most points will win 3 casual days in January. A small box of pasta or one dollar is one point, a medium box of pasta is 2 points and 3 points for a big box of pasta. The grades will be split into three groups, K-3, 4-6, 7-9. One grade out of their set groups will win the casual day(s) prize.
If you have any questions, please send an email to glamorgan@cbe.ab.ca – Attention: Leadership
Character Education & November Virtual Assembly
We are excited to share our 1st Virtual Assembly of the 2021-2022 school year. The character committee and grade 9 leadership along with the support of staff and students would like to share our November Virtual Assembly. The video is a combination of short clips submitted by one class from each grade highlighting some of the amazing work going on at Glamorgan. We hope you enjoy this 15 min video, and we encourage you to watch it with your child and talk about what they like most about Glamorgan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmyMLta0kf4
Spirit Week
From Grade 9 Leadership...
Dear Families of Glamorgan,
The annual winter wonderland has arrived. This is our winter spirit week! Each day between December 13-17, your child will participate in activities to mark the last week of school for 2021. They will have special dress up days and during the week they will participate in various activities. These are the activities:
Dress up days:
Monday, December 13: Winter hat day (Any appropriate winter themed hat is allowed)
Tuesday, December 14: Cozy Sweaters (Wear ugly or a favorite sweater/hoodie)
Wednesday, December 15: Winter themed dress up day
Thursday, December 16: Candy cane day (Dress in red and white)
Friday, December 17: Pajama Day
Special Events during the week:
1. Door decoration contest (winner announced after winter break)
2. Candy Cane sale forms (send out form on Thurs, Dec 9)
3. Collect forms and money (Mon and Tues, Dec 13 & 14
4. Candy cane distribution (Thursday, Dec 16)
Important Reminders
• Dec 1-13 - Calgary Food Bank Food - Drive
• School on December 10th
• Last day of classes on December 17th
• First day back from Winter Break - Tuesday January 4th