PRINCIPAL’S REPORT
JANUARY 2005
As part of the Ministry of Education’s Foundations Initiative a number of Professional Development opportunities have taken place and will continue to do so over this year and next.
Alice Gould, Barb Ferguson, Pauline Meagher and Dave Passi attended a PD session in Red Rock, which outlined the value and differences in Shared and Guided Reading in the Primary Division. As a result of this session, Pauline Meagher has volunteered to be our school’s Primary Lead Literacy teacher.
Pauline will attend an Assessment for Literacy workshop in Terrace Bay. Alice Gould who is a Board Trainer for Literacy will lead this session. Pauline and Alice in turn will come back to our school and provide workshops for our Primary Division.
Daniela Stuewer volunteered to be a Board Trainer for Primary Geometry. Daniela attended a weeklong session in Thunder Bay to receive her training. She in turn will train teachers from across the Board who in turn will return to their schools to train the Primary teachers in their schools. Brenda Cordeiro will be the Lead Primary Math teacher for our school.
Karen Passi has volunteered to be the Junior Literacy and Numeracy lead teacher. She will attend training sessions and will then return to our school to provide workshops for teachers in our Junior Division.
As well, Karen Passi, Brenda Cordeiro, Chris Turnbull and Belinda Schleier attended Math workshops in Thunder Bay in early February.
Dave Passi attended the following as well:
ę Board Policy Committee videoconference to present a rough draft of a Policy and Management Guidelines for Assault Against Employees (Dave has been asked to chair this committee and is to have this new policy ready to bring to the Board for June).
ę People’s Voice in Education Project Videoconference – This is a new initiative from the Ministry of Education to replace Parent Council and School Council input is requested.
ę A meeting with a representative from OSBIE. All log and record books passed inspection and the school met all standards successfully.
February 4th PD Day
ę Alice Gould delivered a workshop on Assessment for Literacy and Guided versus Shared Reading to staff.
ę Divisional meetings filled out the day with staff discussing Literacy and how to better deliver a quality program.
On January 27th, the whole school was involved in Family Literacy Day. Older students were paired with younger students and they shared reading stories and their own written work. Students could be found in every nook and cranny throughout the school reading and sharing with each other.
All schools in the Board were requested to submit a report outlining the reasons they would require an Educational Assistant. We were fortunate enough to have our request accepted and as a result Kathy O’Neill has been added to our staff as a .5 Educational Assistant. We welcome her and wish her all the best in her new job.
Intramurals continue to run successfully. The Intermediates are involved in Basketball and Curling. The Juniors continue with netball and are also involved in the Drama Club. Kids are Authors continue to work on the book they are creating and the Book Club continues to meet. Special thanks to the fllowing staff members for their assistance in these intramurals: Mrs. Woodrow, Mrs. Gould, Mrs. Meagher, Mrs. Ferguson, Mrs. Turnbull, Mrs. Passi, Miss Stuewer and Mrs. Schleier.
On February 14th, 35 Grade 7 and 8 students will travel to Marathon to participate in a volleyball festival with students from Schreiber, Terrace Bay and Marathon.
Kelly Sagle and The Family Centre began their Esso Math Program designed for parents and children from Junior Kindergarten to Grade 1. Ten families, parents and children, participated in the first session – an excellent turnout. This program will run every Tuesday from 6:00 – 7:30 p.m. in the Library.
We have acquired a program, which we can use. We have four confirmed instructors and are looking at commencing in late February once our after school intramurals are completed.