Oct 18 Newsletter
Posted onThe coming week will be a busy one around the school! While there will be a couple of long days for teaching staff, we are looking forward to it because it is a rare opportunity to connect with you face-to-face to talk about your child. Three-way conferences are intended to be a time for the student, their parent(s)/guardian, and the classroom teacher to connect and talk about how things are going. During the meeting, teachers will talk about next steps in learning and how you as parents can support your child’s learning. If you haven’t already done so, we encourage you to book a spot using School Conference Manager before Wed. Oct 23 at 3:00. Slots are only 10 minutes long. If you have multiple children at the school, we advise leaving an open spot between your scheduled conferences to give you time to get to the next classroom.
One of the tenets of my philosophy of education is that every child has areas of strength, alongside the areas for growth. I think if we are honest, we can all admit that there are things we are really good at; things which come relatively easily for us. Unfortunately, there are also things that are harder for us to learn or do consistently. As we approach conferences, let’s celebrate the successes and commit to continuing to support students with their stretches. For some, reading is easy, but math is tricky. Some are masterful at team play and sportsmanship in PE but writing descriptive paragraphs takes more patience than they currently possess. Some love hands-on learning in Science but peer interactions tend to go awry and sometimes even become hands-on. Yes, it can be hard to hear that your child is struggling in some way, whether academics, friendships, behaviour, or other area, but I am convinced that all students also have strengths to celebrate.
Here’s a quote that relates to this idea. It’s one that is often attributed to Einstein though the origin is actually unclear. ‘Everyone is a genius. If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.’
Upcoming Dates (Please see the Calendar on the Website for more information)
October 21-25 – Book Fair (For specific dates and times, please see the website calendar)
October 23 & 24 –Student Conferences (4:00 – 7:00)
October 24 – Grade 2 Field Trip to Calgary Farmyard
October 25 – Kindergarten has NO SCHOOL due to kindergarten conferences
October 31 – Halloween hop
November 1 – NO school – Professional Learning Day for staff
Student Conferences and Book Fair:
You must sign up for a conference slot using School Conference Manager (see link about in Administrator’s Message); the conferences are not ‘drop-in’. The book fair will be open during the evenings of conferences. All proceeds from the book fair go towards buying books for the school library and classroom libraries.
Coupon Book Fundraiser:
Thank you to all families who participate in the effort to raise funds and provide opportunities for Ralph McCall students! The response has been quite positive, and many students have sold a lot of books. If you have books that you are not able to sell, please return these to the school
Halloween:
On October 31, students are invited to wear a costume to school for Halloween. A couple of things to keep in mind as you decide on a costume:
- We are a K-4 school. Costumes should be appropriate for our age range. Avoid anything overly scary given the very young children at school.
- Students will be learning as usual for parts of the day. They will also be going outside for recess. Ensure the costume is something they can sit in comfortably at their desk and can play in during recess.
- Some classes are doing messy activities (pumpkin cleaning!). Be aware that costumes may become soiled.
- We do not have change room facilities or room in the bathrooms for changing. Students need to come in costume or be able to independently put it over their regular clothing during the day.
- No weapon elements of costumes should come to school
- Faces must be uncovered at all times while at school for safety reasons.
Please do not send treats to school for Halloween.
There will be a ‘Halloween Hop’ with music and games in the gym. This event will be led by Grade 4 student leaders under direction of teachers. Parents from Parent Council and Friends of Ralph McCall are providing decorations and assisting with decorating the gym. Thank you, parents!
If your family does not participate in Halloween activities, please communicate well in advance with your child’s teacher. We will have a teacher-supervised alternate room with fall activities for students to do during the Halloween hop.
Remembrance Day:
Schools will be closed on November 11. We always have a time of remembrance on the instructional day before the 11th. This year the ceremony will be held the morning of November 8. The Remembrance assembly is for students and staff only. While we would love to be able to open this event to families and invite you to join us, we can’t, because of the size of our student population and the capacity of the gymnasium.
We are already planning for the annual ceremony at Ralph McCall. We would like to honour our veterans in a meaningful way by including pictures of Ralph McCall students’ family members who are serving/served for our country. If you have a family member who is serving/served that you would like to share that with our school, please email the photo to Mrs. New at knew@rockyview.ab.ca no later than November 1st. Please let Mrs. New know your child’s name and class, as well as any other information about your veteran you would like to share (such as the veteran’s name, their relationship to your child, where they served, their rank etc.) If you submitted a photo in previous years, we sent emails on Thursday, Oct 17 requesting permission to reuse the photo and information.
PBIS
Our School Positive Behavioural Interventions and Supports (PBIS) team met this week to plan the details for our next school-wide activities, learning about Safety. As we focus on the area of Safety at School; we will further develop the concepts of moving throughout the school in a safe and kind manner, being aware of our bodies and how we move, and following directions. Our first school-wide assembly will be happening in just a couple of weeks, and we will use this time with the students to kick-off the learning topic and to review expectations. Our Grade Four Leadership Club students will be participating in the assembly through a video presentation, helping to teach about expected behaviours.
Our work with the PBIS framework guides us as staff in our commitment to respond to student behaviour responsively, through prevention, teaching and responding to student need. As we work together to strengthen our school community, teaching shared expectations, we will update on our latest initiatives!
School Emergency Response Program
Within this past week we held our second evacuation drill (fire drill) of the school year, and the staff and students practiced evacuating their classrooms and the school in a calm, orderly manner! Good job everyone!
Each year, schools are required to complete fire drills, emergency evacuation drills, and lock down drills. These are important drills to help us prepare for any type of emergency that may come our way. Rocky View has provided families with some information about the different types of drills that are covered in our preparedness plans. You can find more information about them here; "Rocky View Schools Emergency Program: A Guide for Parents and Guardians" https://www.rockyview.ab.ca/about-rvs/emergency-response
Reminder - Heathy Hunger change of process
Healthy Hunger is back for Fridays! This program is run by the Friends of Ralph McCall. If you order lunch for your child and they happen to be away that day, please call or email the school office to let them know if you will be picking up the lunch. The school will no longer call or email you to ask your plans. If you wish to pick up your child’s lunch, it will be available between 11 – noon. Any lunches not picked up by noon, will be donated or discarded. There are no refunds for lunches when your child is absent.
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From School Council and Friends of Ralph McCall
With the winds blowing colder and leaves beginning to fall, we had a lot to be thankful for this past weekend! For those of you who celebrate the spooky season, Happy Halloween, we can't wait to see all the costumed kiddos in the neighborhood and at school.
Parent Council & Friends Meeting: Thank you to those who joined us to learn more about us at our meeting, as well as discuss what we know about the playground project at our meeting on October 8th. Our next meeting is Tuesday, November 12th in the Learning Commons. Please join us!
Healthy Hunger: Today was another Fun Lunch! Subway was the name of the game today, and the students who participated were super excited for the delicious treats. If you're interested in participating, simply go to www.healthyhunger.ca and sign up with a parent account. From there you can add your students under their teacher's name and purchase from any fun lunch event of the year. NOTE: fun lunch orders must be submitted by the Sunday prior in order to be included.
Spirit Wear: Our fall Spiritwear sale has now wrapped up and the orders have been processed! Stay tuned to find out when the items will be delivered
Great Little Coupon Books: Despite early delays, our GLCB fundraiser kicked off with a bang! It's really wonderful to see the students and parents in our community coming together to support our school. At $15.00 each, these coupon books are a great investment as they contain local Airdrie businesses. No more needing to drive into Calgary to take advantage of a coupon. This is a local Alberta company as well and provides 50% of all sales back to us for use in the school. Our sale ends Monday, so be sure to send in your forms and any unsold books.
******* PLEASE NOTE: the fundraising society is liable for the cost of any books not returned, so please make sure that any unsold items are returned so that we can maximize the money we have to support the school.**************
Playground Fundraising: We will be creating a Playground Fundraising Sub-committee as part of Friends of Ralph McCall Society at next month's meetings, members will still be part of Friends, but this will allow them to meet separately and keep our Tuesday meetings as efficient as possible. If you're interested in joining, please email friendsofralphmccall@gmail.com