viernes 25 de octubre, 2024
Estimadas familias,
AMA Safety Patrollers - A successful first week!
Our first group of Escuela Eugene Coste Safety Patrollers started their leadership work on October 21 at our eastern crosswalk at 96 Ave and Hillgrove Crescent. This program came to our school as a result of the amazing work that our grade 4s did with their Ever Active Residency last year.
We have already noticed the following positive changes:
- Vehicles are slowing down
- Drivers are more vigilant about pedestrians at the crosswalks
- More pedestrians are choosing to use the supported crosswalk.
- Adults are modelling safe crossing behaviour for their children.
- Drivers parked along 96 Ave are leaving more space around the crosswalk (it should be 5m) when parking
We have also noticed a few areas for growth:
- Some drivers appear impatient
- Vehicles that double park (block the road)
- Pedestrians – parents and kids jaywalking
We are confident that in time, the positive impact of our Safety Patrollers will continue to grow. We are already seeing incredible leadership ability
and confidence that is growing from our participating students. Younger children are noticing our leaders and aspiring to become Patrollers when they are older. We are grateful for your support, encouragement and modeling of safety and patience when sharing the road during our busy drop off and dismissal times.
¡Muchas gracias a todos!
October 25, 2024 – Professional Learning Day for Teachers
In spring 2024, our school administration team, together with our Area 6 Inclusive Education Strategist made plans to provide a valuable learning opportunity for teachers to enrich our work for the 2024-2025 school year.
Today, we welcomed our Area 6 Inclusive Education Strategist Laura and special guest, Josh (Area 7 Inclusive Education Strategist) to work with teachers on our professional focus for this year: differentiating learning for our students.
Following a very informative and inspiring presentation that centred on complex learners, teachers took time to reassess current and future learning tasks in order to refine their own planning so that it better reflects student needs.
Our teachers are amazing professionals and were appreciative of this time to learn, work together, and reaffirm our priorities.
Reminder – Halloween
There are some parameters that we adhere to in order to ensure that this continues to be a day focused on learning, with some fun built in. To help you with planning, please consider the following
Costumes are appropriate for a school setting
No masks please. We do need to see students’ faces to ensure that we can communicate clearly with one another.
Face paint is ok!
Please avoid anything too scary or gruesome as we do have a young population and not everyone is ready for spooky costumes.
Leave pretend weapons at home.
Costumes can be worn comfortably for the day (can your child sit, move, stand and play in their costume?)
Treats and snacks
We know that many of our students will engage in trick or treating or that special items might be provided from home in lunch kits or later that evening. Please do not bring additional treats to school for Halloween.
Be reasonable about how many candies/treats are included in lunch kits in the days following Halloween. This is a great opportunity to model balanced nutrition.
Activities
Teachers will provide a variety of learning activities that are fun and related to Halloween on this day, in addition to regular planned, classroom tasks. Many classes spend time looking at spooky vocabulary in Spanish related to common Halloween themes, creative writing or art.
Our school will be holding an assembly in the afternoon to sing and dance to Halloween-themed songs, view a presentation about Halloween (Trick or Treating) safety and to celebrate the creativity of each class’ costumes.
We thank you for considering our messaging about this event. If you have questions, please do not hesitate to reach out.
