L ECOLE TOPSAIL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PARENT NEWSLETTER January-February 2015 Volume 5, No. 5 Message from the Administration: Dear Topsail Elementary Parent(s)/Guardians: Welcome back to the routine and a very Happy New Year to you all! We are very pleased to announce our 4 th Annual Auction, Dinner and Dance! This year, (Note the NEW DATE), the Parent Fundraising Committee at Topsail Elementary will be hosting its 4 th Annual Dinner, Auction and Dance on Saturday, April 18 th, 2015 at the Woodstock! It promises to be bigger and better than those before it! Last year s Auction, Dinner and Dance was a fabulous event! Our Topsail parents and friends gathered at the Woodstock for a fun-filled evening consisting of a live and silent auction, games of chance, a delicious meal and a lively dance that went into the wee hours of the morning! This event raised just over $40,000.00 for our school! Because of your generosity we have been able to purchase Guided reading tables and chairs for grade 1 and 2, listening centers, new computers, a wireless printer and many other resources to support our literacy block initiatives at each grade level. This year we hope to raise funds to support some work on the grounds in Alex s Way which need some soil and mulch to keep the exposed tree roots safely underground. Additional funds will help to support a long term plan to update our lab and library areas. We also hope to purchase a third ipad cart and some standalone computers. This huge event is not possible without the tireless efforts of our parent/teacher Auction Committee. Committee members for this special event include Gwen Humby, Natasha Nichols, Nicole Petten, Nancy Hodder, Brenda Power, Sara Moody, Colleen Smith, Heather Unsworth, Tanya Drover and Shelley Moores. Tickets go on sale on Tuesday, February 17 th at a cost of $65.00 per person. Your ticket includes a welcome drink, your delicious meal, three bottles of wine per table, your auction paddles and our live entertainment, a great dance band, The Phantom Four!! This year we will also be continuing with a yummy dessert auction to round out the event. A live and silent auction will take place and lots of games of chance. Tickets may be purchased at the school office or by filling out the bottom portion of this letter and sending it along to school with your child. There are a limited number of tickets available so tickets will be sold on a first come, first serve basis. You can request a table of 8 or 10 for a group or indicate that you wish to be placed at a mixed table with other patrons. Deadline to purchase tickets is April 13 th, 2015. One additional and very successful part of our auction last year was the 50/50 draw. The winner walked away with over an $8600.00 prize! On February 17 th these tickets will be distributed in books of 10 per family to sell for this year s auction. The big draw will take place during the auction on April 18 th!
So please, save the date, Saturday, April 18 th, 2015 @ 6:00 pm and invite your family, friends and neighbors to come out and support our school. It s sure to be a great night with lots of items to purchase and win! Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress, and working together is success! Name: Contact #: (Please print clearly) Child s name: Child s teacher: I would like to purchase tickets for this year s auction at a cost of $65.00 each. I wish to be seated with a group of 8 or 10 that includes: (Please print clearly) Please place me at a mixed table I have included a cheque (Check) (Please make cheques payable to Topsail Elementary School) Mr. Deveaux Vice-Principal Mrs. Conway Principal Cod Nugget Fundraiser: Many thanks to all those who participated in our fall fundraiser; we collected $7,512.00 (after costs). Many thanks to our school council chair, Ms. Shelley Moores, Mrs. Goulding, Mr. Darroch Mercer and Jungle Jim s for all their assistance. Thanks especially to our Topsail Elementary families who supported the event and helped by cooperating with deadlines and pick up times. Congratulations to all those who received Jungle Jim certificates. Each child who raised more than $30.00 received a Jungle Jim s Kid s Safari Meal Deal certificate. A big congratulations to our three grand prize winners Brandon Bowen, Carlie Dunne and Catherine Hart who each received a $100.00 Toys R Us gift certificate. Volunteers/Thank You! Many thanks to our band of parent volunteers who gave many hours of valuable time organizing, making, repairing costumes, setting up the stage and decorating the gym and lobby area and assisting on the evening of our Christmas concert. Thanks as well to our sound technician Nick Sears, to our grade 3 teachers and of course to Ms. Cook. The grade three students offered us a beautiful performance that was enjoyed by one and all! Emergency Closures during the school day: Now that winter is here, we have to deal with snowy weather; therefore the chances of early closures are more likely. An early closure refers to situations when the school is already in session and there is a decision by the English School District to close the school early because after consultation with weather experts, they feel that driving conditions will deteriorate and unsafe conditions may exist at regular dismissal time. The school will communicate these closures to parents through the one or many of the following methods: Synervoice Automated Phone Calls Synrevoice email notification Classroom teacher parent email notice Radio Announcements School & School Board Website
Please make sure that your child s teacher is notified of any changes in your contact information. Cell phone numbers and work numbers change frequently. It is important to notify the school if you have any changes to your phone numbers. Also we ask that you resist calling the school to confirm the closing time. The extra calls really tie up our lines and sometimes make communicating with all the stakeholders more difficult. Thanks for your help with this. Early Morning Closures: Occasionally, schools may be closed or have a delayed opening due to weather or building issues. These closures will be announced on a number of local radio stations including VOCM, CBC, OZ FM and Coast 101. As well, an early morning closure will be listed on the English School District s Website www.nlesd.ca under Status Central. Once on the site, you can customize the site to only display Topsail Elementary. This would inform you of our school closures at a glance. By bookmarking it, you can prevent a long wait time as the system scrolls through the list of schools. Please note that if the school is closed prior to the day starting, there will not be a Synervoice message. Synrevoice is used during a mid day school closure or when there s a delayed opening. During a delayed opening, it is used to pass along any information you may need regarding school reopening. There will not be a message on the School s Web Site as this can only be accessed during the school day and not remotely. Decisions regarding closures are communicated through the radio stations in groups of schools defined by different criteria. Topsail Elementary is part of the Metro School System usually, but, if conditions in CBS are different from the rest of the Metro area, you may hear that the decision only affects the CBS area schools. Acts of Kindness Week @ Topsail Elementary: As a staff we have discussed the many anti-bullying campaigns that take place during the month of February in other schools and areas around the district and the province (i.e. pink shirt day, anti-bullying week etc.). With the unique age of our very young students (4-9 years), we find that the discussions around bullying often times make our students ultra sensitive to any act they consider bullying and the word becomes overused, over identified and not effective. Our positive behavioral supports that we focus on daily here at Topsail, have two main words that we encourage and share with our students on a daily basis- RESPECT and KINDNESS. We felt that perhaps the way to approach the anti- bullying sentiment was to focus on the positive on kindness, and raise their awareness around ways to treat others with kindness. At each grade level during the week of February 9-13, classes will be focusing on ways to raise awareness of how to demonstrate kindness. School wide we will be talking about kindness during the announcements daily and we will be creating a kindness chain. Each time someone in our school does something kind for another person, they will add their act to a slip of construction paper and we will see how big we can make our KINDNESS CHAIN. Your child s teacher will share with you the kindness activities your child s grade level will be focusing on for this Acts of Kindness Week. We encourage you at home to discuss ways in which your child could demonstrate kindness to a friend, a fellow student or a staff member in our school. Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind. - Henry James 100 th Day of School: Keep an ear for celebrations around the 100 th day of school. It should happen during the February 9-13 week barring any unforeseen weather events!!
Janeway Day in the Schools: February 13 th, 2015 is Janeway Day. Every year Janeway Day in the schools provides an opportunity for students and teachers to help other children. Since 1986 students and teachers have donated more than $983,000 to the Janeway. On February 13 th, we are asking students and teachers to donate a loonie as a donation to the Janeway - a place we are lucky to have available to our children. Dressing for the Weather: Now that winter is here, please ensure that your child is coming to school properly dressed for outside playtime. Our goal is to get the children outside to play on any day when the weather is cooperative (usually less than -10 with the wind chill factor), and conditions are safe (i.e. ice etc.) Outside clothing should include hats, mittens, boots and snow pants. We ask that you write your child s name on all items of clothing as the children frequently misplace/lose things and we have large bags of clothes that go unclaimed. We just recently donated the remaining unclaimed items from the fall to a local charity. We thank you for your continued cooperation with this request. Winter Activity Program for K-3 students: Topsail students from Grade K-4 will be partaking in a winter activity program (either skating, instructional swimming, recreational swimming and zumba.. beginning in February and running into March and early April. Details and permission slips have gone home to some groups and others will follow very shortly. Please keep an eye on your child s school bag this week and in the near future for the information and permission forms. Recycling Volunteers Needed: The Topsail Elementary Green team is looking for Friday morning volunteers!! Any parent who feels they could offer an hour on Friday mornings to assist with the collection of our weekly recycling, please let us know. Even if you are able to help out every other week as your schedule permits, this would be a great way to support the school. We could use some help with this project! Many thanks in advance for considering helping with this. Family Literacy Day: Our Topsail community celebrated Family Literacy Day on Tuesday, January 27 th. Our students really enjoyed our special parent and guest visitors who helped make the day a memorable one. Many thanks to our parents and special guest readers who came out to help us celebrate by sharing their favorite book!
Keeping our students safe some reminders: 1. Dropping students off on Spruce Hill Road: This very UNSAFE practice has been happening on a regular basis as of late. Please DO NOT drop your child off at the Spruce Hill Road entrance as there is two-way traffic and the entrance is used for staff vehicles to enter our lot and for buses to exit the property. Some children are crossing two lanes of traffic and running through the vehicles to get to the main entrance. This is a very unsafe and unacceptable practice. Letters will be issued to the families choosing this drop off point. Community policing has been requested to monitor this area for us. 2. Students will only be allowed in the building at 8:25 am. There is no supervision prior to this. With our current cold temperatures and remembering their safety, please do not drop students off until the doors are open. 3. When parents/and/or guardians are using the intercom system, we ask that you identify yourself by stating your full name, the name of your child and the name of your child s teacher. For example, Hi, my name is Mary White, I am Susan White s mom and her teacher is Ms. Jones. As always, we ask that once you are given access to the building you proceed to the office where we will have your child paged and they will join you in the office area. Our signing in and signing out protocols will remain the same. 4. The West end doors (the ones by Rectory Road) will remain locked from 8:55 am until 3 pm. However, there will be a teacher opening the doors from 12:20 until 12:30 to allow the afternoon kindergarten students to enter the building. Kindergarten afternoon session students should not be dropped off before 12:20 as there is no direct supervision prior to this. 5. All students being brought to school after 12:30, either for the Kindergarten afternoon session or other students coming back to school from lunch are asked to use the main entrance. Parents have to accompany Grade 1-4 students into the office to sign them in following lunch or when returning to school. Kindergarten students do not have to be signed in when they arrive unless they are late for some reason. 6. In an effort to maintain our secure school, we will be continuing with our regular secure school and lockdown practices. Our school board policy requires us to practice these procedures a minimum of three times a year. The procedures afford our staff and students the opportunity to practice drills that prepare them for any eventuality. More information on these practices may be found on the English School Districts webpage under Policies - Policy J-JLI: Secure Schools and School Lockdown. As always we thank you for your continued cooperation in making our school a safe place for you and your children. Bricks 4 Kidz- Air, Land and Sea : Bricks 4 Kidz are starting a new session here at Topsail beginning on Tuesday, February 10 th and running until Tuesday, March 17 th, 2015, after school from 3:10-4:10 pm. Parents can contact Kelly Noseworthy at 728-4489 or by email at knoseworthy@bricks4kidz.com or register by visiting the website at www.bricks4kidz.com/stjohns. Topsail Kindergarten Students to celebrate Mardi Gras!! On Tuesday, February 17 th, all classes will celebrate Mardi Gras with a parade! They have been learning about the Mardi Gras experience in their classroom. Children will each create a mask to wear in school for the Mardi Gras Parade. They will parade to the gym and share their creation with other students. Students are asked to bring along a donation of nonperishable food item for the CBS Paradise Food bank. What a way to reinforce French culture and create good citizenship in our school!
Dates to Remember: February 6 Recycling Day February 6 Skating starts for Grade 1 see schedule sent home on January 23 rd. February 09-13 Acts of Kindness Week @ Topsail February 9 School Council meets at 5:30 pm February 09-13 Staff Appreciation week @ Topsail February 10 Instructional Swimming starts for Grade 3. See schedule sent home on January 26 th. February 13 Janeway Day in the Schools. Please bring along a loonie for the Janeway February 13 Recycling Day February 14 Happy Valentine s Day! February 16 School closed for school district holiday February 17 Topsail celebrates Mardi Gras! Bring along a non-perishable food item for the CBS- Paradise Food Bank February 17 4 th Annual Dinner, Auction and Dance tickets go on sale! 50/50 Tickets will be distributed to students! February 20 Kinderstart. No school for regular Kindergarten s today. February 20 Recycling Day February 27 Recycling