Weekly update - Indigo adopt a school, work to rule, blogs and newsletters

HELP WIN BOOKS FOR OUR SCHOOL
If you are on the internet most days, in particular for the next 2 weeks or so, please consider adding this link - https://adoptaschool.indigo.ca/eng/schools/743#.VgLvlni2NdA.facebook - to your favourites and making sure you click every day! The top 3 schools in the province will win books for their school and each click really makes a difference - we went from 101st to 84th in a matter of hours with only a few clicks. You can also make a donation of $12 to get an extra 10 "adopts" but you don't get more for bigger donations.



EFTO AND WORK-TO-RULE
Just an anecdotal update really about this. Firstly, I was chatting to Miss Mills (the principal) earlier in the week and she mentioned that the situation within the school feels pretty tense with the teachers having to be careful not to step outside the boundaries set for them by their union which, at times, is frustrating for everyone including the teachers themselves. I have spoken to several of the teachers and they definitely are doing their best to get things done within the confines of what the union rules are currently allowing. It's great to see the cross country practices, for example, have not been curtailed. It's not easy for everyone and though things from the playground seem relatively smooth, there is a lot of work going on inside the school to keep it all ticking over!

In terms of next steps, the union rep is going to a meeting on Tuesday (29th) for further discussions and I hope to hear from her soon after that and will keep an eye on the news also. Let's all hope for a resolution to it all sooner rather than later so everyone can concentrate on getting on with learning and teaching!

SCHOOL COUNCIL COMMUNICATIONS & NEWSLETTER
At the moment, I have not been sending out newsletters- partly because I have had busy work weeks and feel I am still settling in to the new school term but also because we are working to compile the email list and class lists from the forms that have been returned. We have had a pretty good return rate on those forms so thank you so much for that! It's also better late than never so please feel free to send them back if they got pushed to the bottom of the pile - you can drop them off in the office if you get to the playground or ask your child to do so if you don't. Some teachers are just putting them in a pile in the classroom if they get returned to class so they should eventually get to us! We think class lists will be really helpful for all parents and are delighted to have had a good response.

Cross country start time update

Hello all, as Mme Aradj posted here, Thursday's cross country was excellent - perfect weather and a huge turnout! Really, really lovely.

The start time has now been updated to 8am so you get an extra 15 minutes to sleep or eat breakfast!

In other fitness and sport-related activity, we are hoping to get the Fitness Fridays initiative up and running. Please contact the school council if you have a little time before school on Friday to volunteer or help with getting our children moving in the morning and starting the school day with a burst of activity. There was information about this on the forms that went home but we understand that there are mountains of forms to get through and it's easy to miss something!


School council email: lordlansdowneschoolcouncil@gmail.com

Quick News Round-Up

Cross Country - starts THURSDAY 17th September

Parents of Grade 1 children and up - cross country practice starts on Thursday (not tomorrow as in earlier post) at 7.45am for those who want to join in. The meet will be on in early  October so just a few weeks of training to fit in! Sessions are Tuesday and Thursday mornings before school and parent volunteers and helpers and cheerleaders are welcome!

Grade 1/2 split class

Those of you with children in grades 1 and 2 may have been aware that there were so many of them, a new class was planned for early in the school year once Ms. Mills had confirmed numbers of children arriving back in September. This has now been done - there is a new Grade 1/2 class starting this morning with 9 grade 1 students and 7 grade 2 students. Those of you affected will have received information about this. The straight grade 2 class - with Mme Mackness - remains as is. 

Paperwork, forms and work-to-rule

Parents should have received two packages of paperwork home in the past week. One of these is all white paper and is updated medical and contact information for the school. The other consisted of coloured sheets and was information from the school council including forms to facilitate the compilation and management of class lists and volunteering opportunities. As the teachers are on work-to-rule, they are not permitted to collect these. This is pretty inconvenient for everyone - teachers, office staff and parents - but there you go! If you have any of the packages and do drop-off or pick-up, you can drop them in the office. If you don't get to the school, you can send them in with your child(ren) and we are working to have a dropbox in the classrooms where the teachers can allow children to drop off the forms. The teachers are co-operating and communicating with us about this and everyone is doing the best they can!

Also, Mme Aradj has told me that she cannot start the school-based blog or Twitter feed until the work-to-rule is called off. It will be active...just not yet!

Bike Racks!

Pictured are two of the four new bike racks that we now have at Lord Lansdowne! Hurray! My Grade 2 and SK children were pretty happy about them!

If you have pictures that you would like featured on the blog, you can email me  . 

Welcome back and Welcome to Newbies!

Hello and welcome!
I am hoping some of you will have found this blog from the package of information and forms that we, the school council, distributed yesterday.

This year, Mme. Aradj is also running a blog and Twitter feed so we will be coordinating so that all sources of information are useful and will be careful that parents are not receiving too many emails or anything.

We welcome any and all parental involvement in the school council - just attending meetings is great and anything more is fantastic! We strongly believe that Lord Lansdowne parents can help make it an even better place for our children to be.

Do follow us on Twitter, if you are into that: @TorontoLLPS and also follow the official school feed @LL_TDSB . The school blog - http://lordlansdowne.wordpress.com also has links to individual class blogs.

Get in touch if you have suggestions or ideas or requests for what you would like to see here and stay tuned for the announcement of the first school council meeting!