Estimadas familias,

The Heart (To Belong) / El corazón – (Pertenecer … Ser parte de)

‘Escuela’ Eugene Coste School acknowledges and supports the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s (TRC) Calls to Action, and makes the following commitment to action for the 2023- 2024 school year:

We will continue to use the CBE Holistic Lifelong Learning Framework as our guide, as we step with grater intention into the Heart (To Belong) domain. To honor student voice, we commit to learning about how to bring harmony with self, others, and the natural world, so that we may strengthen our culture of belonging and to reinforce our roles as Treaty People.

What does it mean to belong? This is an example of an overarching question, which acts as a guidepost to design learning and conversations over a period of time. It is open-ended, complex and subject to a range of interpretations. In our Spanish Bilingual program, we have the added intellectual challenge of engaging in this conversation in Spanish.

How do we work with students to break down an abstract concept such as belonging? If you are lucky enough to speak more than one language, you might notice that direct translations do not often fully capture the spirit of a word. If I think of “to belong” with my brain it leads me to the direct translation in Spanish, the verb pertenener. Yet, when I think about the term “to belong” with my heart, it leads me to the phrase ser parte de, to be a part of (something).

Sometimes students in our community might struggle. We notice that often this struggle is related to a lack of a sense of belonging. This might manifest as feeling rejected, left out or misunderstood. As a staff this year, we are doubling down on our commitment to student well-being by continuing to work with our children to understand and clearly express their feelings. Also, how their actions, which are driven by their feelings, might impact their relationships and learning. In terms of learning, we can also begin to think about the importance of all students being able to see themselves in the work. While worded differently, this collective effort is reflected in our Commitment to Truth and Reconciliation. As a staff, we are feeling energized by the possibilities that this work presents to us and we are looking forward to sharing it with you as the year progresses.

Parent-Teacher Conferences – Thursday Sept 21 and Friday Sept 22

Parents and Guardians are an important part of our community! Your participation in opportunities to connect with your child’s teacher are key to ongoing success in learning.

Teachers will be looking to you to share about your child’s strengths, opportunities for growth and goals for this year. Teachers will also be able to provide some brief insight into how your child is settling into the daily routines of the classroom. Please remember that conferences are not your only time to communicate with your child’s teacher. You can request a phone call or appointment to meet if you have concerns or questions that require more time. We are looking forward to welcoming you to our school next week!

Everactive Schools – Residency

 

 

Eugene Coste is undertaking several initiatives this year to enhance learning, including a special residency with Everactive Schools. We were invited to participate in this residency thanks in part to ongoing dialogue between Escuela Eugene Coste, the Haysboro Community Association and CBE Transportation. Traffic and parking pressures have created less desirable impact for many neighbours of our school. While working to address the root cause of these issues, we can also examine how students travel to school.

 

 

 

 

 

The learning portion of the residency has already started! Our grade 4 students are learning how to observe and document the conditions around our school. They are noticing how spaces are designed and designated for pedestrian and vehicle traffic. They are also noticing what rules and restriction are in place around the school. Interesting questions are surfacing:

• How can we be more active on our way to/from school?
• What might make active transporation difficult?
• What rules/restrictions are in place around our school. Why?

School Council and Enrichment Society – ¡Un millón de gracias!

 

Last night we had an incredible turn out to our first set of School Council and EC Enrichment Society meetings. Thank you to all of our regular and new attendees for taking the time to connect with us, learn about our priorities for the year and work with us to enrich learning at Escuela Eugene Coste School.

 

We are so excited to share that the EC Enrichment Society has voted on and approved spending for the following 2023-24 Wishlist Items:

 

• Up to $4000.00 for Classroom Art Supplies
  • this is for our higher quality, specialized ordering: paints, replenishing brushes, cardstock, watercolour paper, ink, fine-point sharpies, sketching pencils etc
• $2300 towards Grade 4 and 5 student chairs (wear and tear, enrollment growth)
• Up to $1000.00 for Learning Tools
  • (Sensory items, fidgets, flexible seating, etc)
• Up to 1500.00 for Mystery Science digital subscription
  • This is to enhance the delivery new science curriculum outcomes across all classrooms. It provides teachers and students with experiment simulations as well as teachers professional resources to plan for science more effectively
• $6300.00 to cover the cost (incl GST) of our Nov/Dec Latin Dance Residency
• $1500.00 to cover the cost of feeding teachers/staff during evening events

 

This latest batch of approved items, combined with spring approvals for our upcoming Yellow Steps Learning academic residency (Feb-April), Tennis and an Evergreen Theatre performance is approximately $25 000.00 worth of support. Your influx of financial support is tremendous and truly does “enrich” the learning opportunities for all students at Escuela Eugene Coste.

Healthy Hunger – Fun Lunches are BACK!

 

We are excited to let you know that fun lunches are back for the 2023-24 school year! We receive our lunches through Healthy Hunger, an online platform that delivers pre-ordered lunches to the school, in which proceeds go to the school.

 

Our first fun lunch will be on Wednesday, September 27th, 2023 from Boston Pizza. We have made every effort to balance out Fun Lunches and snacks so that both Kindergarten and Child’s Play students are able to participate equally.

 

If you wish to order and haven’t already set up your account, please do so at www.healthyhunger.ca. Orders must be placed online through the Healthy Hunger website no later than midnight 5 days before the event. Likewise, if you need to cancel or change an order, you must do so on your profile, five days before the event. Please note, if your kindergartener is in Child’s play, you may register your student in two classes; their regular homeroom and their Child’s Play class. This will ensure they can order fun lunches even when they are not in class!

We kindly ask that if your child is absent the day of the fun lunch, please contact the school prior to 10:30am if you wish to pick up your child’s food that same day. Pick up would occur after 1pm. If not specified prior to 10:30, your food will be donated to someone in need of lunch. No refunds will be issued if your child is absent on the day of a Fun Lunch.

 

If you are having issues with account set up or ordering please call the Healthy Hunger support line at 1-800-818-6260. Alternatively, you may email ecsfunlunch@gmail.com with your questions. We kindly ask that you do not contact your child’s teacher or the school office with Fun Lunch queries. Fun Lunch is run by parent volunteers. They do their best to include vegetarian and gluten free options. We appreciate your kindness and patience with any and all feedback regarding the program.

 

In order to be as inclusive as possible, we have added a donate-a-lunch option. For $5, you can contribute to ensuring no child is left out of Fun Lunches due to financial restraints. If you are able and willing, we thank you in advance for helping our school community as a whole.

 

Please see our Fun Lunch Page for dates and suppliers.