Monday Memo
Week of February 17th, 2020
In case you missed it.....
Amazing authors!
Cody Deaner
With great thanks to Kiwanis of Peterborough, we thoroughly enjoyed welcoming Cody Deaner to our school this past week. What a fantastic and inspiring presentation! I was especially impressed with how well our students followed the Assembly Cougar ROAR. Way to go!
Co-regulation
Like any good teaching strategy, our goal ultimately is to model enough that our students know what to do and begin to do it themselves. This past week, Bella noticed Spencer having some trouble focusing in the library, and chose to co-regulate along with him. THIS is when we know we are making progress....baby steps!
Important Dates
Monday, February 17th - Day 0
- Happy Family Day!
Tuesday, February 18th - Day 1
- Both recesses - Our new Recess Guardian program begins!
Wednesday, February 19th - Day 2
- Jenn will hand out IEP’s to go home
Thursday, February 20th - Day 3
- Tentative day of case conferences (finalization TBD)
Friday, February 21at - Day 4
- No School due to province-wide job action
Some important information for this week....
Case Conference Day
I’m hoping to set aside most of the day on Thursday for some much needed Case Conferences. A lot will depend on whether families are able to attend..the last time I scheduled one everyone canceled! I’ll be working on setting up the schedule and letting you know if it’s a go on Tuesday.
Individual Education Plans
Thank you to everyone for all your hard work on IEP’s! I’ve provided feedback to everyone who had the chance to be part of our 47 individual student plans. Once you’ve completed any revisions, please let me know. I will then complete the process (print, sign, copy, file in OSR and send home). A reminder that IEP’s will be sent home on Wednesday, so please let me know ASAP when I can proceed with your set. Many thanks!
Support Staff Schedule
On Friday, the support staff team met for a half day to discuss, problem solve and plan around our students who are having significant challenges right now. We worked together on looking at changing schedules in the short term to meet those needs and we are looking to start the new schedule on Wednesday (if it's ready to go I will post for all staff on Tuesday night). I appreciate your support in understanding that safety for all must come before anything else....we will all need to be flexible as our amazing team will be running much more until we can get back to our regular, consistent schedule. Please know we will all do our best to support as many students as we can during these challenging times.
Turtle Math Competition
Just a quick update - given that the Turtle Math Competition is currently struck work, Trent University has kindly worked with ETFO for a resolution. For those teachers who were planning on administering, I will hold on to the packages and once the labour disruption is over, we'll be able to complete the competition then.
Recess Guardians
I’m thrilled to let you know that we will officially be launching our Recess Guardian program on Tuesday! Each morning and afternoon recess on both the main yard and the kindergarten yard, 3 to 5 Recess Guardians will be supporting fun games for our younger students. They will be wearing bright blue vests and they’ve been working so hard to learn and understand how to teach games to younger students! Over the next few weeks I’ll be posting team pictures and their weekly games so students know who to look for. Take a minute to check out what they are doing and encourage them - such great student leadership at Kawartha Heights!
Exterior Keys
The good news is that one of our missing exterior keys was found.....the bad news is one is still missing. Please keep looking everyone! We must have all keys accounted for before any can be signed out in the future. Think of it like searching for Hammie!
Staffing 2020/2021
It's hard to believe that we are already beginning to think about staffing for next year! On Tuesday I’ll be placing a quick form for you in your mailbox - it’s completely your choice if you decide to fill it in by the end of the month. Getting information from you about your teaching preferences for 2020/2021 helps to guide and inform me when I’m looking at teaching assignments for next year. If you would rather not pass along the information that’s fine too - I will begin to look at the staffing process over the next month.
Staff Morale....here we come!
It's time for a bit of Staff Morale fun. You may not be a big basketball fan, but I'm hoping you might be persuaded to join in our own "Kawartha Heights March Madness"! Here’s how it works..... those interested in participating will be divided into brackets, or pairs, that will play a game against each other within a given time frame. You can choose to play before/after school, on your lunch or on a break. Games will be short but fun (cards, connect 4, etc)! It’s a sudden death format, so the winner of the game moves on to the next bracket, where a new game will be played. There will be lots of time to complete your bracket so it’s not too stressful. The grand winner at the end will receive a special prize, not to mention a gold medal! Please sign the whiteboard in the staff room if you are interested.
Concussions and Memoradum 158
Just a reminder that we must cover concussion protocols yearly now - especially when participating in physical education classes, as well as intermural sports. A memo from Supt. Ingram is attached below for your reference. Further information about KPR's concussion protocols will be forthcoming.
Upcoming dates to keep in mind
February 26th - Pink Shirt Day
March 5th - Grade 6 End of Year Photos
March 12th - The Big Crunch
School Improvement Plan
I recognize with losing some days, it becomes increasingly challenging to support all the learning you would like in the Scope and Sequence Math document. The following was sent by Teaching and Learning earlier this week and can help you to navigate through:
Here are some thoughts from Teaching and Learning to help you:
- The Scope and Sequence is designed so that all of the content in the math curriculum can be addressed before the end of May. So there is wiggle room and no need to panic at this time.
- Don’t compromise the learning for this NSN cluster. Take the 4 weeks for it.
- Ensure you don’t teach more than you have to by attending to the expectations in the cluster.
- The next cluster is Data Management. All expectations do not need the same time and attention. Spend more time on the “meatier” expectations related to analyzing data rather than collecting data (taking surveys).
- Look for cross curricular connections. Can you work with data during health (e.g. time spent exercising) or science (e.g. electricity use overtime). How can you incorporate transformational geometry into art or location and movement into mapping in social studies? Brainstorm with grade alike partners about ideas for integrating.
- When all of us are teaching the same math content at the same time, the opportunity to learn together is a key component of using a common sequence. In order to maintain that advantage, engage your colleagues in a conversation about the timelines. Try to stay within a few days of your division, if not the whole staff.
- For now, Teaching and Learning will continue to send the Scope and Sequence: Making It Happen emails according to the original timelines. If you and your colleagues aren’t quite ready to switch topics, that’s okay. We always use the same subject line ( e.g. Scope and Sequence: Making It Happen Cluster XX Issue #X) so you can sort your emails by subject and find it in that alphabetical listing, or you can use the search feature in Outlook. Then when you’re ready, you have key messages and diagnostic assessment tasks to get you started, or typical misconceptions to notice when looking at students work as your unit progresses.
Just one more thing.....
Jennifer Sampson
Email: jennifer_sampson@kprdsb.ca
Website: https://kawarthaheights.kprdsb.ca/
Location: 11 Kawartha Heights Boulevard, Peterborough, ON, Canada
Phone: 705-742-7521
Twitter: @KawarthaHPS