Three months

We have now completed our first three months of the school year and already have much to celebrate thanks to excellent focus and initiative by our students, staff and community, including:

– welcoming our Elder’s Mills community to our team

– The launch of our school touchstone

– Sharing a redesigned Learning Commons

– Launching our Green Bin program through our school’s Eco Team

– Implementing new technologies into our classrooms and classroom programs

– Meeting with parents and guardians to review student’s Progress Report Cards

– Our staff exploring professional learning in many ways

– Starting to plan for the transition of our grade 8 students to high school

– Starting our Roots of Empathy programs

– Recognizing Bullying Awareness week

– Starting our Healthy Snack program

We have developed a focused start in our classroom programs in the areas of academics, athletics and the arts.

We have had the chance to recognise the work of various employee groups at our school including: our Designated Early Childhood Educators, our care taking team, Educational Assistants and our Administrative Assistants.

Our staff have provided several student leadership and extra curricular opportunities such as our Cross Country Team, The sign language club, library and office helpers, the student Tech Team, our Eco team, Student Council, Boys’ and Girls’ Volleyball, Floor Hockey intramurals, homework club, Lunch room helpers, and our Positive Climates for Learning Committee.

As school community we have given back through our Terry Fox Walk, The Count Me in Project, and our local food bank drive.

We also appreciate the work of our school council with our school this year. Their upcoming Dance-A-Thon will take place on December 13, 2013 and will surely be an enjoyable event. Remember that all parents and guardians are welcome to our meetings. Future meetings will be: January 14, 2014, February 20, 2014, April 22, 2014 and May 29, 2014.  We look forward to seeing you there.

Three short months…

…remember when it was only 3 short weeks?

Remember when I asked us to write our story?

How do you think we have done so far?

Onward.

Mr. Collins

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On the doorstep of our school touchstone

We are most excited about tomorrow.

Tomorrow afternoon we welcome students from Elder’s Mills P.S to our school to meet us and help them learn more about our school. This will follow a morning session working with grade 7s from Elder’s and Lorna Jackson P.S to help draft our school touchstone. Over the past month we have collected data from our students, our staff and from our community. Our touchstone will build on our ongoing focus on Character Traits, equity and inclusivity.

Developing a common language of character and identifying the values and goals of a school community solidifies a school’s character initiative.  When everyone — students, staff and parents– use the same words to describe behaviours and expectations, talking about how we interact becomes easier.   A touchstone is a document which outlines these values, goals and behaviours.

Going through this process of identifying these core values unites a community around the way we believe people should behave, interact, and be.

Tomorrow, the exciting work begins on capturing what we value in our touchstone.

We can’t wait to share the results.

Mr. Collins

Who we are

We had a great night here at Lorna Jackson Public School. We extend our appreciation to our school council for running our Movie Night this evening. Over 250 students and family members joined us as a community. Special thanks to one parent who even loaned us the popcorn cart for our festivities. We were also delighted to be able to showcase our new mural – The Gathering Tree – recently completed. Once again, we thank our parent artist Mrs Guido for her vision and for inspiring our students to create a beautiful centerpiece in our main foyer.

We have really celebrated our community this past month. With  a decade of good work completed as a school community, and with Elder’s Mills students and families set to join us in September, now is a perfect time to dream about where we go next.

We will announce a very special initiative soon that I am most excited about.

In advance of the initiative, I would like us to begin with a concept we use in education called “Minds On” which is a strategy that allows us to:

• establish a positive learning environment

• connect to prior learning and/or experiences

• set a context for learning

For this “virtual Minds On”, I want us to consider the following two points:

– Who are “we” as an LJPS community?

– What do we believe in as an LJPS community?

Feel free to respond here with your thoughts.

Your thoughts will very much help us in the work we are about to engage in next month.

If you have enjoyed what we have done so far…..

………..we think you are really going to love what we have planned next.

Resources for your family

Thanks to one of our parents for inquiring about resources her family could use at home with children.

Here are some starting points:

Literacy

• Tumblebooks is a resource we have purchased to support reading at home. Our site license username is: ljps password is: books
• Bookflix is another wonderful resource to support reading with your child. Our  username: dsbyork   password: dsby7692
• Last week we sent home hard copies of the Ministry Document Reading and Writing with your Child from the Ministry of Education.
• Adlit.org is another website focused on adolescent literacy for parents and educators.

Math

• Last week we sent home hard copies of Doing Mathematics with Your Child from the Ministry of Education.
• Brainpop is a fun site with math activities that your child can enjoy at home.
• For our intermediate learners, the Ministry of Education offers it’s free math tutoring supports.

We hope you enjoy these resources to support your child’s learning at home.