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!

Dates- School Council Meeting and Curriculum Night

Please take note that our first school council meeting will be on

Wednesday, 28th September, 7pm to 8.30pm. 

If there are agenda items you would like to include, you can send them to lordlansdowneschoolcouncil@gmail.com

The Curriculum Night has moved from the original advertised date and will now be on

Wednesday, 5th of October, 6.30pm to 7.30pm

Children are welcome to come along to this.

Welcome!

WELCOME BACK!

Just a very quick post to welcome back all our parents and students who are continuing from last year and to welcome our new SKs and other students joining us this year!

We hope you have received the communications from the school blog which is the best way to stay in touch with the day to day happenings at school. School is ending earlier for grades 1 and up this year at 3.20pm rather than 3.30pm. 

Here on the school council blog we will keep you up to date with council activities including fundraising, advocacy campaigns and any social events.

To get the ball rolling, we will be joining in the Indigo Adopt-A-School Campaign which starts in ten days - sign up and spread the word here - https://adoptaschool.indigo.ca/eng/schools/743 - daily clicks and options to donate will get more books for our school - it's a great scheme!

If you are new to the school, you may find this post useful.

Happy September!

School Council Meeting Report - June 14th 2016

Our final meeting of the year took place on Tuesday, June 14th. There was plenty on the agenda and it was great to see such that our number of regular attendees seems to have grown during the year. Together we are stronger!

The full minutes of the meeting are available on the relevant page on this very website once the draft is approved but this post is to give a general report. The school council now aims to send out the agenda 2 weeks in advance (via email, we also link in the newsletter) and, after Tuesday's meeting, we agreed that we will leave time for Any Other Business and allow people to request that items be added to the agenda up to a week before the meeting. We do try to stick to the allotted times (didn't go quite so well this week but Jordan did a champion job in other meetings - there was just A LOT to discuss this time around!).

Funding
Although this was one of the last items discussed, it is one that sparked a lot of conversation and ideas so we shall start with it here. Overall, the idea was floated that having champions for different
causes could work well so that those passionate about a given cause could be involved in moving it forward. Sarah Layton volunteered to help co-ordinate the fundraising for different causes so that people don't overlap or organise conflicting events or the like. In the end, through discussion and voting, we came up with 5 main targets for fundraising for the year to come. These are (in no particular order)

1.                Sports equipment/uniforms – Eugene, possibly Mme Raoult – unspecified amount
2.        Chromebooks – specific appeal submitted regarding these at earlier meeting – Eve - $5000
3.        Orff instruments – specific request submitted regarding this at previous meeting - $2000 – Jordan
4.        Library books –  unspecified amount - Jordan 
5.              High Park Outdoor Education Scheme ($19.50 per student, useful for SK to grade 3) – Elize (half-committed) and David

Money for an anti-bullying program (see item below) is already in the bank for next year. If you feel passionate about any of the 5 items above or have a great idea about how to fundraise for a particular cause, do get in touch with the school council - we'd love to have more people on board!

     Safe and Caring Schools

     The school council has a sub-committee who are focussing on ways to support the school in building a happy, caring, bully-free environment. Building on from the Community Builders parent workshop held last week, the council is committed to funding a program to come into the school, and this money is already ring-fenced and in the bank. The exact program and the form it will take is to be discussed in the weeks to come and we are working with staff to see what will suit students, staff and parents!

   Save our Vice Principal Campaign

    We are sad to report that it looks like our campaign to keep a vice-principal position for the 2016/17 school year has not been successful. However, the current prediction is that we may not have one the following year either and we are not giving up the fight. We will continue to make noise and stay in touch with TDSB, with the superintendent and other relevant people to convince them that with two schools, plenty of bussing, the international language program and more, Lord Lansdowne and Da Vinci NEED a vice principal. We hope you will join in the letter writing and noise-making campaign - keep an eye out for news on how you can help!

    

     Refugee Family Sponsorship Update

    We are pleased to report that "our" family have had their interviews and are eligible to come to Canada. When they get here, there is a list of household items that they will need. You will have the opportunity to sign up at the school concert (Wednesday 22nd) if you have items you can give or you can access the list here too and sign up right now!