Principal’s Message
The New Year is off to a very busy start at Stephen Central School. Students and staff are tackling their academic endeavours and other school activities with the enthusiasm and optimism that a new year brings. I would like to sincerely thank parents and guardians for their kindness and support of our students, staff and community over the past several months. Stephen Central School is a truly compassionate and caring community and I feel blessed and privileged to be a part of the Stephen Central School family.
Term one is quickly coming to an end and first-term report cards will be going home on February 18. There will be no formal interviews with this report, however if you have questions or concerns about your child’s report card, or would simply like to connect with your child’s teacher, please indicate this by checking the appropriate area on your child’s report or contact your child’s teacher at the school. We also encourage you to provide feedback and to work with your child to set meaningful goals for term 2 under the Student Comment and Goal Setting Section of the report card.
Please help us provide our students with the best learning experiences possible each day by ensuring that students arrive at school on time. When students arrive late, they miss very important teaching moments that begin as soon as school starts. While we understand that coming to school late due to an appointment is sometimes necessary, consistent late arrivals jeopardize the academic success of students and send a message to students that school is not important.
As part of our Stephen Central Safe Arrival Program, parents/guardians need to call the school each time their child is absent from school. Our Safe Arrival procedure requires our secretary, Mrs. Regier, to call the parents/ guardians of all absent students. She needs to call parents/contacts until she speaks with someone to be sure students are safe and accounted for. This process often consumes a great deal of time, and causes a lot of worry regarding the safety of your children, when we are not able to make contact. Please call the school each time your child will be absent. You can leave a message on the answering machine early in the morning or even the night before, 519-234-6302. We appreciate your help with this. Looking forward to another outstanding year at Stephen Central!
Have a fantastic February!
– Donna Gregus
From the School Council Chair
Thank you to everyone for your overwhelming support of our Basket Draws at the Christmas Concert. Your donations of items and purchase of tickets made this a very successful event. Please feel free to join us at our next meeting on February 8 at 6:30 pm in the school library, where we look forward to discussing the months ahead and how we can best continue to support the school community.
– Paula Eagleson
Special Announcement AMDSB’s Board of Directors:
A key term of the settlements that were negotiated recently with employee groups was the provision of an additional PA day each school year. The requirement for an additional PA day is effective immediately and, as such, applies to the current school year.
The School Year Calendar committee met on January 5, 2016, and following that meeting contact was made with Huron Perth Catholic DSB. Both committees have selected Monday, May 9, 2016 as the additional PA Day for all schools in Huron and Perth counties.
Please see AMDSB’s printable School Year calendar:
http://yourschools.ca/…/school…/2015-2016-SchoolCalendar.pdf
Please also see AMDSB’s Events calendar:
http://yourschools.ca/avon-maitland-events/
Joyeux Carnaval!
Our “Carnaval” this year will be held on Thursday, February 18 (snowdate: February 19) beginning at 11:25. The whole school will participate in activities to celebrate the winter season. It is a great school spirit event with activities such as snow tug of war, toboggan and obstacle relays, snow soccer, hot chocolate and a visit by Bonhomme! Students should be sure to dress warmly on this day wearing snowpants and perhaps even bringing an extra pair of gloves or mittens.
Silver Birch News
The Silver Birch Students have been eagerly reading the Fiction, Express and Nonfiction books. Five students are reading in the Fiction program. Silver Birch Express has 30 keen readers. What are the facts regarding ghosts, Canada, endangered turtles, baseball, trash and glow-in-the-dark creatures? That is what the nine students are discovering in the Nonfiction program. Bravo to all of our enthusiastic readers! Silver Birch students continue reading and make sure you see Ms. Wondergem to mark the books that you have read on the Silver Birch charts in the library. Voting takes place on Wednesday, April 20th.
Talk to your child about the book(s) that he/she has read from these programs. Does your child have a favourite book so far?
Some primary classrooms will be starting the Blue Spruce books during the next two months. They will also be voting for their favourite book in their program.
Welcome Mrs. Cameron!
We would like to welcome Mrs. Heather Cameron, who has taken over the role of School Resource Teacher previously filled by Ms. Jordanna Dale. Mrs. Cameron will also be teaching Grade 1/2 math and health. Mrs. Cameron comes to us from Bedford Public School and has had previous experience as a primary teacher and a Special Education Resource Teacher.
Playground Equipment
All playground equipment has a ten inch base of pea gravel under it to absorb falls. Unfortunately, when temperatures are below freezing the gravel, as does sand, freezes and loses its impact absorbing qualities. It is the school’s responsibility to ensure preventable accidents do not occur. For this reason, we regret that any playground equipment, from which a fall might occur, will be closed to students during much of the winter.
Family Literacy Day
A wonderful day of reading adventures happened at Stephen Central Public School on January 27th. Students participated in a school-wide “book-nic” and enjoyed some of our staff’s favourite stories being read to them.
Character Corner
The character attribute of focus for February is ‘Perseverance’ – staying purposeful and committed.
This includes things like setting goals and sticking with them until they are completed, speaking up when others will not, completing homework and assignments, always trying your best, learning from your mistakes and striving to do better.
My grandma used to tell me to just “put your mind to it, your back into it and get on with it.”
Quotes About Perseverance
- Fall seven times, stand up eight.
- – Japanese Proverb
- Life is not about how fast you run or how high you climb, but how well you bounce.
- – Vivian Komori
- Self-regulation: The student…sets own individual goals and monitors progress towards achieving them…perseveres and makes an effort when responding to challenges.
- – Growing Success, Ontario Ministry of Education.
Technology in our Board
Next Generation Learning is a powerful initiative supporting the use of technology in teaching and learning across the Board. It started in January of 2013 as a one-to-one iPad program in a few grade 7 and 8 classrooms. Today we have over 4400 iPads in the hands of every grade 7, 8 and 9 classroom in our Board. We have an embedded secondary teacher/technology coach in each of our secondary schools. We have four elementary teacher/tech coaches supporting students and teachers from Kindergarten to Grade 8. Our coaches are available to all teachers and students; whether they work in a one-to-one environment or when a classroom has just one teacher iPad. Coaches are available to connect the right technology to engage kids to the curriculum, to support teachers to assess student understanding and to transition learning spaces and practices to mobile technologies. The Avon Maitland District School Board is on the leading edge in using mobile technologies to amplify learning. We encourage you to check out our blog (http://edublog.amdsb.ca/ngl/) and join the conversation about Next Generation Learning.
The Huron County Health Unit will be visiting our school and offers the following dental programs:
Students in JK/SK, grade 2, 4, and 6 classes will be included in a dental screening. Children who have been previously identified by our program will also be seen. Any parent who wishes their child to be screened at school, other than those listed above, should notify the school before the scheduled screening date.
As a preventive service, topical fluoride applications, dental sealants and dental scaling will be offered to eligible children who have been screened at the school.
Financial help is available through the HSO-EESS program for children in urgent need of care where the cost of treatment would be a financial hardship.
A dental program called Healthy Smiles Ontario is available to help children 17 and under see dentists regularly. It is available for families living with low incomes that have no dental coverage.
Do you need more information? Call the Dental Department at the Huron County Health Unit at 1.877.837.6143 or visit www.huronhealthunit.ca and search Dental Health
Hot Lunches Update
Firstly, I’d like to thank you for your patience as the account balances are updated. There might have been a delay in processing payments. Let’s back up to before the holiday break … that last week of school was a busy time for Parent Council. The meal orders were due online and the holiday meal was prepped and served. Most of the funds, (but unfortunately not all of them) had been received to the office by mid week. These were processed in a time frame to get the funds out of the school and to the bank before the break. So the funds from the February orders have now been processed and you should notice your accounts are up to date.
Secondly, we hope the students enjoyed our new Dairy Queen meal day. There was much excitement for this day. Please note that we will have another Dairy Queen day in March. On line ordering opens February 1st. We are hoping to introduce another vendor soon. Keep your eyes on Hotlunches.
No Hotlunches account yet, no worries…..you can still sign up.
https://stephenps.hotlunches.net or search using Stephen Central Hotlunches. There is a register button on the top right corner – click. Our access code is SCHL . Fill in the required fields. If at any time you are having trouble, there is a Help button. This will send an email directly to me. I will assist you in setting up your account. If you have sent in “paper orders” in the past, I have set up an account for your students, please contact me at or 519-237-3771.
Community Announcement:
Grand Bend Youth Baseball and Grand Bend Soccer Registration
Saturday, March 5th at the Grand Bend Legion (behind BMO)
9:00 am – 12 noon
For more information & registration forms:
www.grandbendsoccer.org
www.grandbend.com/baseball or search FB for Grand Bend Youth Baseball
Grand Bend offers hardball.
Congratulations to: Keiran Stewart and family who were the winners of the January newsletter draw.