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Dec. 4, 2008.

Dear Parents,

Report card time is fast approaching. Teachers are busily organizing student assessments and preparing criteria for the written reports. When you receive the report, you will see the various subjects and under the subject title you will see two or three criteria and beside each criteria there will be a check at the appropriate performance standard (not yet meeting, minimally meeting, meeting, fully meeting or exceeds). There is also an overall assessment for each subject. Each report will have an introductory comment about the student and a section on goals and support. The intermediate reports will also have a sheet with letter grades that correspond to the performance standards. From grades 4 to 7, Language Arts and Math will have comments and grades for each term, but subjects such as Science, Social Studies, and Fine Arts will have a grade but not a comment for each term. A Social Responsibility comment will be part of the report either in the introductory comment or in a separate section under the title of Social Responsibility. If the student is receiving resource support this will be indicated and an attachment will accompany the report.
Reports will be going home on Wednesday, December 17th. This allows a couple of days to respond should you have any concerns or comments. Goal setting interviews for the second term will happen January 21 and 22.
This is the time of year for giving and Laura Secord students are no exception. They have taken on many initiatives such as Change for Change Jar. This is a Student Council initiative. Each classroom has a jar for collecting small change from students. This money will go to Project Love. Project Love supplies equipment for students in countries where students do not have simple items such as pencils and notebooks for their schools. Next week the Student Council will also be collecting socks for those less fortunate in our own city. Students are encouraged to bring in a pair of socks. We also have boxes in the school to collect dry goods for the FOOD BANK. These fundraising ideas are the initiatives of our very active Student Council. Each intermediate class has two representatives on the student council. We applaud them for their efforts in the area of social responsibility to our community and to the global community as well. We thank you, the parents, for your support as well.
Students are also selling cards of Hope in the main foyer. These cards were made by Laura Secord students in their Social Responsibility classes with Mme Mc Dougall. The colourfully artistic cards have very beautiful poems written about hope and many have holiday trees that make them ideal cards for sending to love ones at this holiday time of year. The money collected from these cards will go to support the homeless in our city.
Our Quebec Exchange Grade 7 students are also doing a fundraising for their trip to Quebec this coming February. Letters were sent home on Tuesday of this week about the coffee sales. The coffee is Milano Organic French Roast and is $15 per pound bag. It is available until Monday, Dec. 8th.
We thank our students for displaying such untiring leadership in their school community.
Sincerely,
Marion Broadbent and Christine Rock

Winter Festival - Wednesday, Dec. 17
Several of our classes will be presenting a special winter concert in our big gym at 6:30 pm on Wednesday, Dec. 17. The teachers will be sending information about this event to their students.
Social Responsibility Posters
Students in our school entered our poster contest. On the poster they had to represent our motto of "I take care of myself. I take care of others, and I take care of this place."
If you are in the school, please take a few minutes to look in our display case in the main hallway and on many of our walls for all the incredible posters that students produced. The staff were all very impressed with the quality and detail of all the posters. A job well done!

Volleyball
Volleyball is alive and well in our school. We have several teams of Junior Girls, Boys and Senior Girls and Boys. We congratulate the Junior Boys for winning their zone championships and moving to the City finals. They will be playing this Monday, December 8th at Shaughnessy Elementary. The Senior Girl’s team will be playing in their zone final as well and we wish them all the best. We would like to thank all the teachers that take time out of their busy day to coach and support all of these students. A big thank you to Mr. Green, Ms. Chambers, Mme Deacon, Mr. Breslin, Mr. Craik, M. Carrier, M. Peeters, M. Sans, Mme Calvo, Mme Hunter! We would also like to thank Kristen Nielsen who helped coach during the lunch hour. Our Secord students benefit so greatly from all this expertise and willingness to make our students’ experience a success.

Music Listening Program
This week is Danny Elfman week. Mme. Deacon has prepared 4 days of unnamed Danny Elfman songs and the students in their classes are asked to identify the songs. Day one there were 4 songs and the rest of the days there are 3 songs each day. Once the class figures out the songs titles, they are asked to write them down and give them to Mme. Deacon. On Friday of this week there will be a draw and the winning class will receive homemade cookies baked by Mme. Deacon herself.
Day 1 the songs are made for TV
Day 2 the songs are from Movies of the 80s
Day 3 movies of the 90s
Day 4 movies of the 2000s
Good Luck to our classes!

Divison 16F focus on Friendship
Mme Vose’s class made a delicious friendship soup this past week. The idea behind it was very much to demonstrate that when everyone adds a little something (to soup or to friendships...), it tastes/ feels a whole lot better than if no one added anything.
All of the students brought in ingredients and put them together to produce a delicious soup that was shared amongst the students and there was even enough to share with staff members. That is how we know that it was so very tasty.

Rainy Day procedures.
We have tried out our new rainy day procedures. Rooms 108, 109, and 110 are primary areas and are designated for specific activities such as games, Lego, colouring, and drawing. Room 105A is designated for intermediate students to play checkers or chess. The hallway outside the rooms are also designated for reading or drawing quietly. The west facing basement lunchroom is also designated as an area for students to socialize. Thus far these areas are well attended and students are enjoying having these activities when it is raining very heavily outside at lunch.

Friday Fitness
This coming Friday will be our third Friday Fitness session. If you are in the school from 8:50 to 9:10 you will see every class doing exercises and running around the school while music is piped throughout the school. It is rewarding to see all of our students participating and doing their best to do 20 minutes of continuous physical activity.

Parking Enforcement
We have been forewarned by the parking enforcement people that there will be an officer around the school enforcing the parking regulations this coming week of December 8th. If parents are parked in non-parking area they will receive a ticket in the mail. The enforcement of parking regulations is standard practice around all school areas. Parking regulations around schools is to limit cars in the front of the school to help keep our students safe when coming to and from school and also to allow room for school buses and emergency vehicles to be able to park in front of the school.

Upcoming Dates
Wed., Dec. 17 Winter Festival Concert at 6:30 pm in the big gym
Fri., Dec. 19 last day of school before the holiday break
Mon., Jan. 5 first day of school after Winter break celebrations
Thurs., Jan. 8 New French K Info evening 7:00 pm
Wed., Thurs Early Dismissal at
Mon., Jan. 20 Bottle Drive Fundraising for Quebec Exchange - bring in recyclable bottles from home or take them directly to the recycling depot.
Jan. 21, 22 2:00 pm for Goal Setting Interviews
Tues., Jan. 27 Prof. Dev. Day students do not attend school