Colts Connection - Parents Edition

Welcome back! We are excited to wrap up another great September start to the school year. It was been a great start up with some new faces around the school along with all the familiar ones as well. The school has had a great energy since all of our students arrived and we expect that the energy will continue throughout the year. We are excited to be able to work closely with our parents again this year in all the different capacities, whether it be attending an event or volunteering for a field trip, having our parents into the school and connected with their child's classroom is a recipe for success for all students. The Colts Connection is one way for me to help parents be informed and connected with the school. I send this out at the end of each month (or early in the following month) with a variety of information and celebrations around what's happening at Ponoka Elementary. P

- Mr. Nathan McEntee

Principal

We currently have 556 students enrolled in Kindergarten to Grade 6. This is an increase of 23 students from last year. Including Bright Futures Play Academy, we have 610 students. Although less than our enrollment in 2019/2020, we have been growing steadily over the past 2 years.

We have a few new/returning staff members this year and we are excited to welcome them to the Ponoka Elementary team. Mrs. Kassies (Grade 4) and Mrs. Skjonsberg (Grade 1) are back this year after being away on leave for a year. Miss MacAskill is sort of new, she was at our school a few years ago teaching Kindergarten and has returned to PES teaching Grade 4 with Mrs. Kassies.

We also welcomed Mrs. Spence to our Bright Futures Play Academy program, Mrs. Spence taught in BFPA two years ago. We are excited to have her back. Mrs. Amber Harke (Kindergarten) is returning to PES as well. She has been teaching Bright Futures Play Academy in Eckville for the past few years.

Our teachers have been busy completing the Numeracy and Literacy assessments that are now required at the beginning and end of each year for Grades 1-4. The government had announced COVID interruption grant money for grades 2-4 students. The results of these mandatory assessments will impact the amount of funding we receive to support students whose learning was impacted by the pandemic. Details around when the funding will be available have not been released at this time. We are hopeful to recieve some funding to continue the work started last year to bridge the gaps that occured from the pandemic.

We had an amazing day for the Terry Fox Run! Thanks to all the amazing work of our students to collect donations, we raised $11 414 for the Terry Fox Foundation.Thank you to all of our families and communities members who made donations. We set a goal of $10 000 and if we reached the goal as a school, the principals agreed to get pies in the face!

A reminder that Parent Portal is your one stop shop for the all your fees, consent forms, and accessing student marks. If you are not sure how to access your Parent Portal please contact the school office right away.

We made the decision to use a single program for parent communication this year. In the past we have had multiple programs for communicating with parents. We have been hearing feedback from parents that it can be confusing if you have multiple children to remember which app to check. This feedback impacted our decision to move to SeeSaw messages. SeeSaw also has the ability to be a digital portfolio. We are not universally using SeeSaw as a portfolio, but all of our teachers are set up and ready to use SeeSaw messages. You are also always welcome to use email or call the school 403-783-3583 to contact your child's teacher. Please take a minute to fill out the form to help us ensure we are doing the best job possible to be connected. We will select 1 winner from all who responded. They will win a gift card to Tim Hortons.

We received the Nutrition Grant from the government again for this year, as well as funding from the Breakfast Club of Canada. The breakfast program is in full swing with about 60-80 students accessing the breakfast program each morning. Our lunch program is also in full swing with about 30-40 lunches being accessed each day. The breakfast program is open to any student who comes. Students can come into the building for breakfast starting at 8:10 and we do our best to get them to their classrooms starting at 8:30 a.m. Finally, thanks to some amazing parent volunteers we also have our snack bins back up and running. Snack bins are delivered to the classrooms at the beginning of each week and students can go and grab a little extra snack as they need it.

Although we are just wrapping up September we have already had a few questions about Halloween costumes. Halloween is a fun day around PES and we want to ensure all of our students feel safe and welcome on this day. We ask that costumes do not include any weapons, that students faces can be seen at all times, and we are asking that there be NO inflatable costumes at the school this year. They are too large and cumbersome and create more issues than they make smiles.

We will be having a Halloween Awesome Awards Assembly and costume parade this year and are looking forward to seeing parents there that day.

Teachers will be sending information home about specific classroom activities and such closer to the day.

We have an amazing and very active School Council and parent community at PES. If you are interested in getting involved in the school through School Council, they meet the first Monday of every month at 6:30 pm in the Community Commons at the school.

We are currently looking for some extra hands to help fill our snack bins each week. If you have some time on Monday mornings, please contact Rose Nicholson - 403-358-8400 or bubblebeerose@hotmail.com

October 5 and 6th is picture day! See below for the currently planned order of pictures (subject to change).

September 30th - National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (No school)

October 5 and 6th - Picture Day

October 6th - Parent Teacher Interviews

October 7th - Staff Collaboration/PD Day (No school for students)

October 10th - Thanksgiving (No school)

October 28th - Staff Collaboration/PD Day (No school for students)

October 31st - Halloween Parade and Awesome Awards Assembly