A beginner's guide to Lord Lansdowne

From talking to parents in the playground, I realise that I have learned a lot about life at Lord Lansdowne since my daughter started in SK. Some of it may be obvious, some a little more obscure so here is a post introducing some of the finer points of life at Lord Lansdowne.

My child has library on day 2 - is that not called "Tuesday"?

No, it is not. The TDSB runs on a 5 day cycle. This is, as far as I am aware, to avoid a situation where, for example, a class had gym scheduled on Monday so kept missing it due to public holidays. So, the first day of the school year is day 1 - generally the Tuesday after Labour day - which will make Wednesday day 2, Thursday day 3 and so on. This will continue until there is a PA day or holiday when a day of school is skipped so the days shift forward - got it?! No? Well, the school calendar on the home page also displays the TDSB school day and you should also have got a paper calendar home at the beginning of the year where the school day is printed underneath the date. You can download a pdf or that on the school blog here. You can also download the TDSB Google calendar if you use a Google calendar. 

My child went to Crocodile Island today, apparently. 

Crocodile Island is the raised area with trees close to the playground entrance at Spadina Circle. Obviously.

Newsletter/School Blog/Twitter/Facebook - what is going on?

Honestly? This is still evolving and input is welcome but, in brief:

• The Newsletter - we - the school council - send this out weekly via email, usually around Friday lunchtime but it does vary. It is a roundup of information about what happened in the school during the week, what is happening in weeks to come (e.g. PA days, council meetings) and what school council has been working on. We generally keep it to once a week unless there is urgent information to be conveyed or a time-limited campaign that we want to draw attention to. 
• This website and blog - run by school council to provide information about the school, school council, fundraising and school events for parents, future and present. The blog updates are similar to the newsletter and the newsletter archive is here so if you prefer not to have email from the school council, you should be able to find most of the information here. You can subscribe if you want so that you get an email alert when it's updated.
• School blog/website - this blog is run by the school and is run by the school office and one of the teachers (Mme. Aradj...when labour dispute allows). It provides updates about school events and TDSB communications for parents of students at Lord Lansdowne. You can also subscribe to this blog to have updates sent to your inbox.
• Twitter - this is the school council Twitter. It does not have a huge following but we tweet anyway about school events for those who do follow. We also retweet interesting TDSB, trustee or library tweets. The school also has a Twitter account which will alert you to school events and blog posts. Useful if you like Twitter but you won't be missing out if you are not a member of the Twitterati.
• Facebook - Some people love Facebook, some hate it. One of the parents started a Lord Lansdowne Facebook group and it can be quite useful for queries like "is pizza Tuesday on?" or "did you child mention anything about a school trip?". It's fairly active but not essential - you will not miss out on essential information by not being a member. To join, search for "Lord Lansdowne Parents" on Facebook and send a request and it should be approved pretty promptly.