Principal Report September 2013

Principal's report September 2013 Welcome to the 2013-2014 school year. Welcome back to our families who are joining us again and a warm welcome to our new families at General Lake Public School. We had a wonderful opening with our enrolment numbers just over 400. We have 141 students in our Kindergarten with four JK/SK Immersion classes; one JK/SK English; one SK/1 immersion and 1 SK/1 English. We have 164 students enrolled in our English program, and the remainder of the students are in our French Immersion. Our average class size is 20.74, and we continue to be committed to keeping our Kindergarten to Grade 3 classes under 20. We welcome several new teachers to our team Ms Martinat at Grade 3-4; Mrs Bennett in the Core English; Ms Angela Stone Butterworth in the Kindergarten and Ms Macphee in the 4/5 Immersion. We welcome several new EA's to our team: Mrs Armstrong in Ms Mackay’s Kindergarten and Ms Dominey in Grade 3/4 with Ms Martinat. In the office we welcome Mrs Bouden and to our custodial staff we welcome Ms Wendy Heans. Finally, we also welcome our new Vice Principal Ms Robillard. During this month we have already had several spirit days designed to create a positive school climate and student engagement in school. Our school wide theme for the year is RESPECT. We have divided the students into one of six spirit colour teams and throughout the year we will award points to students who take part in the activities. One of our initiatives is supporting the ‘Free the Children’ Organization begun by Craig and Marc Keilburger. This initiative is designed to inspire leadership in students, as well as inspire students to take action to make a change in the world both locally and globally. We have applied for ‘We day’ tickets and two teachers, Ms Marquardt and Ms Hansen, have committed to taking on this ‘Free the Children’ initiative with the Grade 7/8 students. Last June we had our own Mini ‘WE day’ which I hope to build on for the coming year. In October we will begin our Food Drive initiative called ‘We Starve Hunger’, where for the month we will collect food for the St Joseph Food Bank. Students can also sign up to trick or treat for canned goods. Another new initiative we are taking part in is the Champlain Healthy Food initiative. Last year students in grade 4-6 took part in a survey about their healthy lifestyle. We will get the results of this survey shortly. I have already begun talking about focusing our efforts on increasing physical activity. I would like to have a meeting with a Committee to include a parent representative, student representative, staff and the Champlain School Program Representative on September 26th at 10:00 am to look at our results and come up with an Action Plan. As part of our commitment to physical fitness, we have two different running clubs this year. Mme Cathy and Mme Rattray report over 40 students are taking part in her competitive running club. They would like to take all students to the run therefore imposing a $5.00 cost to reserve a bus. I have about 15 students registered for my Fun Run. Ms Robillard and Ms Green will be beginning intramural program for students in all grades shortly. Our Annual Terry Fox Run will take place Sept 26th. We are asking all students to bring in a Toonie for Terry. Our goal is to raise $800.00 for Cancer Research Foundation. Last June our grade 4-7 students took part in ‘The Tell Them From Me’ climate survey. Results are available. I am looking to put together a committee to include teachers, students and parents to look closely at the results and develop an action plan for our next steps on Tuesday, September 24 at 11:20. Our Current plan is also posted on the blog and on the Bulletin Board outside the computer lab. We continue to work on anti-bullying and at our Mini we-day we launched an on-line reporting system ‘stop-a -bully-ca’. For this year we have booked ‘Jer's Vision’ to come to the school in November during anti-bullying week which coincides with our Scholastic Book Fair. Our GLPS Volunteer brochure has been created to help make General Lake volunteering role easier. We have a number of opportunities for our parents including organizing the volunteer forms and making contact with parents; library coordinator, and bookfair coordinator. A box of supplies for our volunteers is located by office, as well as some information package including staff list ,map and other important information. Today our EQAO results were officially released and I am extremely proud of our results. EQAO stands for Education Quality and Accountability office which develops and oversees standardized testing at the Grade 3, 6, 9, and 10 levels across the province. The percentage of students at General Lake in grade 3 achieving at or above the Provincial standard in reading was 78% , in writing 86%, and in Mathematics 89%. The percentage of students at General Lake in Grade 6 achieving at or above the Provincial standard in reading was 95%, in Writing 85% and in Mathematics was 70%. We are above both the Board percentage, as well as the Province. Teachers will be looking at the data as we prepare our 2013-2014 School Improvement Plan which I will share at an up coming meeting Construction of Valour is coming along nicely and currently is on time for our opening in September 2014. As many know this is our last year at General Lake as we anticipate the opening of our new K-12 school. Last year General Lake students participated in the naming and choosing the colours of green and white. This year students from General Lake are encouraged to enter the Mascot contest introduced at the beginning of the school year. Entries are due Sept 20th and the winning entry may have their artwork used on Valour merchandise. I am anticipating many more activities to engage the students as we prepare for the Opening. Finally, as a tribute to General Lake, staff member Ms Priebe is looking into developing a yearbook. She is has been collecting photos and she is looking into the details from different sources. We will report back to the School Council next month ways parents can be involved, as well as funds she may request to support this venture. In closing it has been a wonderful beginning to the 2013-2014 school year. I am extremely proud of the work students, staff and our families do every day to make this school a warm, welcoming and safe place to be. I am happy to be part of this great school and I look forward to a wonderful partnership with our School Council, as together we guide and support our children. We have achieved so much together in the past for our children, and I look forward to a wonderful year filled with exciting activities, informative meetings and wonderful educational experiences for our children.