School council on Oct 27th - agenda and other documents

We hope you will come along to the school council meeting on Thursday, 27th of October.
You can come and listen or play a more active part - we'd be delighted to see you!

The agenda can be found here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzF2y7UA2iExWnl2YmhqZzdBOGs  Please bring along your own copy to the meeting.

Other relevant documents - one about the ongoing discussion about pizza lunch/providing healthy lunches at the school and another about classroom and library resources - can be found here - https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzF2y7UA2iExLUx5ZzE4aDQyX3c

Kids Have Stress Too - Upcoming Parent Workshops - register to attend!

This workshop is now full. For those who are still interested in attending, we encourage you to join the waitlist (password: stress) and more sessions can be added to meet the demand. People on the waitlist will be notified of future workshop dates. 

Kids Have Stress Too!
Seminar for all parents of 4-9 year old kids

As part of our school’s commitment to enhance our children’s physical, mental and emotional well-being, LLPS is partnering with Toronto Public Health to host a free, two-part seminar for parents to help their kids learn positive coping strategies to deal with stress.

The Kids Have Stress Too! seminar was developed using evidence-based psychological knowledge and experts in psychology, early childhood development, education and stress. It is designed to help parents of 4-9 year old kids understand childhood stress and provide their children with the tools to deal with it effectively.

Kids Have Stress Too!
When:	Tuesday, Oct 25 and Tuesday, Nov 8, 2016 - NOW FULL 6:30pm to 8:30pm Parents are required to attend both sessions
Where:	Lord Lansdowne PS, Room 106
Who:	Parents of 4-9 year old kids from LLPS and da Vinci Childcare will be available (for kids who are toilet trained only, please)
Description:	Even the most nurturing home and school environment includes a range of stressors that can both challenge and motivate children. While stress is a necessary part of development and learning, too much stress makes it more difficult for children to get along with others, interferes with children's ability to focus, think and ultimately learn, and has a profound effect on children's physical, emotional and mental health. The good news is that building emotional health and resiliency can help children concentrate, learn, interact more successfully and deal with stressors they may face in their lives. This highly-informative and interactive seminar will provide parents with the knowledge, awareness and skills to help their 4-9 year old children become healthier and more resilient through learning how to manage their stress.
Instructor:	Dakota Marcotte City of Toronto Public Health Nurse Healthy Child Development Program
Cost:	Free for participants, paid for by the City of Toronto
RSVP:	WORKSHOPS NOW FULL, join the waitlist at: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/kids-have-stress-too-tickets-28629516655 Please enter password: stress Or for more information, please contact lordlansdowneschoolcouncil@gmail.com

International Language Program: changes since last year

Mention was made in the previous post about changes to the International Languages (IL) program but I realise that many of you may like more detail on these so, in a nutshell:

1. Fewer instructors - just 3 instead of 16 
2. Classes are 3 days a week, allowing longer periods for remaining programming and less disruption and transitions in the school day
3. Classes are in designated classrooms making life less complicated!

Mme Hamilton, who was teacher rep at the meeting, agrees that the changes have made the school day easier to manage.

(Slightly belated) School Council Meeting Report

This meeting took place on Wednesday 28th of September and we had some returning faces as well as some new ones. Please, please feel very free to come along to the next meeting (27th of October - further meetings are in the calendar on this site) even if you couldn't make the first ones. People are always welcome whether they want to just listen or would like to get involved further.
Full draft minutes can be accessed from this page here and we should have the proposed agenda for the next meeting posted soon.

So,  back to the topic at hand - the meeting of the 28th of September. The main focus of the meeting was explaining the school council and the structure and roles. We are delighted to have some new parents involved in the council and there are still definitely opportunities for more people to get involved if they would like. Anybody who would like to be part of chairing the council (we have 2 co-chairs but further help is always welcome) or be a back-up secretary, for example, would be very welcome!

Asides from this, we also had a presentation from Mme. Hamilton (teacher rep at the meeting, Grade 1 teacher) who told us about the Se Brancher Coeur program. This is a program to encourage communication and conflict resolution with classroom and parent components which the council were considering funding as part of the Safe and Caring Schools initiative. The motion to fund this was unanimously approved and we look forward to letting you know about the parent events once the dates are decided and we hope to see lots of you there. The program sounds great and Mme Hamilton has already had one of the program team deliver an hour of work in her classroom which was very successful. It is also one of the few programs that can offer the program in French which was important to the teachers so it's a great find!

Mme. Mills, the principal, also had time to give a very quick principal's report. In brief - there have been major challenges with bussing but these are close to being fully resolved. EQAO results for grade 3 were boastworthy but, of course, only give a tiny insight into what is going on in the classroom, enrolment this year was consistent with what was expected so no classroom reorganisation was required in September, a major reorganisation of the International Language program has been implemented and seems to be suiting teachers and students well, the school facilities continue to be improved and a number of issues mentioned in Facilities Index report have already been addressed (as the inspection was in 2013)...and there was more but I would urge you to come along to our next council meeting to really get a flavour or all that is going on in Lord Lansdowne!