Dear Parents & Guardians:

In this post you will find information for the following:

·         Important Dates

·         Principal’s Message

·         Haunted House

·         AHS Community Resources: Parent Engagement & Teens

Important Dates –

·         Oct 11 – IPPs go home for parent signature

·         Oct 23 – Fun Lunch (A&W)

·         Oct 24 – EPS Halloween Dance

·         Oct 25 – Professional Development (PD) Day (No School)

·         Oct 30 – LifeTouch Picture Retakes (AM only)

·         Oct 31 – Kindergarten Halloween Parade (10:30 Parents Welcome)

·         Oct 31 – Grades 1-6 Halloween Costumes (PM only)

·         Nov 7 – Remembrance Day Assembly (9:45-10:30 Parents Welcome)

Principal’s Message

As I make my daily rounds into classrooms, I get to see some of the exciting work that our teachers and students are engaged in. One of our goals in our School Development Plan is to build resilience in our students and we do that within academics by scaffolding their learning through complex learning challenges. Student engagement goes beyond just having personal interest in the topic that they are learning about; student engagement will increase through intellectual and/or academic rigour.

We are providing professional development for our teachers and conducting classroom observations that are intended to support them as they strive to provide learning tasks that foster strong habits of mind, innovation and creativity. When student work is inquiry-based, allowing them to apply reasoned judgement using criteria and to make connections between and among concepts, students can find multiple entry points and engage in meaningful work that will challenge them. 

Our Grade 2s this week worked on their interview skills as they asked questions of Mr. Armstrong (Facility Operator), Mrs. Goodmanson (teacher), Mrs. Hodgson (Administrative Assistant) and myself. Their challenge is to decide which role has the greatest positive impact on our school and they agreed upon common criteria to use in making their judgements. Our Grade 3-4's learning outcome in Science this week was to understand what makes a fair science experiment (using variables). Their task was to consider three different experiments that would determine what makes pumpkins rot the fastest. A relevant question as we approach pumpkin carving season! The proposed experiments utilized a variety of variables such as amount of light, temperatures, time and variety of pumpkins. Students needed to consider criteria and rationalize their answer to determine the most fair experiment to conduct. Our Grade 5-6 students have begun a new unit in math that requires an understanding of place value up to tens of millions. Students were asked to reference prior knowledge as they made predictions about which place value descriptor would be the most accurate when describing certain quantities. Examples included the number of litres in a swimming pool or how much a car costs (tens of thousands, hundred thousands, millions).

These types of tasks allow students of varying abilities to form reasonable judgments and conclusions that are supported through a process of collaboration and shared thinking by the teacher and classmates. Our classrooms stress the importance of having a safe place to take a risk and share one’s thoughts by using agreed upon criteria rather than conjecture. In some instances, our teachers are finding our students to be engaged in the task beyond the allotted timeframe in class; a testament to true engagement.

Haunted House

Our Grade 6 students stayed after school today creating the haunted house for the Halloween Dance supported by Council and Society coming up on Thursday, Oct. 24.

Please check your email from your Room Parents for more information.

Alberta Health (AHS) Resources

October parent newsletters (available for download as a PDF as well if needed).

Children:  The perks of parent engagement

Teens:  Engaging with your teen's school experience