Dear Parents and Guardians:

“We are all guests of this land- nobody owns her.”

Welcome to another school year. We are looking forward to the return of our students and to hear the adventures of summer and to continue to build our community spirit.

Our office officially opened on Monday, August 26^th.  We have a new school Administrative Assistant, Mrs. Cohen who replaced Mrs. Armstrong. She is looking forward to meeting our students and families.   Mrs. Graumann will continue to support work in the front office each morning.  In addition, teachers all returned to school on Monday.  We are welcoming several new staff members including Ms. Peller, Mrs. St. Pierre, Ms. Grant, Mrs. Thomson and Miss Koch. Teachers are busy preparing the school and working in their grade teams in preparation for the first day of school on Thursday, August 29^th.

We have sent communication to our kindergarten parents, regarding the first days of school and our staggered entry information. Please note that all kindergarten students attend on the first three Fridays including August 30^th, September 6^th  and September 13^th in a staggered entry approach.

Group A and B (Morning Designated students) 8:45 am – 10:45 am (doors open at 8:40 am)

Group C and D (Afternoon Designated students) 10:50 am – 12:50 pm

Teachers sent home a letter of introduction and instructions for where to meet on the first day of school on Thursday, August 29^th. Our office is busy with registrations, and we are in a position of some reorganization due to increased enrollment, and we are hopeful to have things in place for the first day of school.  

This year, our focus concept in all grades is “the land.” Teaching teams are working on designing a learning focus for our year based on our TRC commitment: We will ground our learning in Land-based pedagogical practices and the CBE Holistic Lifelong Learning Framework.”

Teachers work in team structures which allows students to be working with a variety of teachers rather than just one. We will continue with our staggered recess throughout the day, where individual teachers will determine the best time to have a recess break. During recess, our playground is in demand several times throughout the day, so we ask that during school hours, families stay off our playground so our students can enjoy it. We invite the community to use and enjoy our playground afterschool and on weekends.

Communication:

Coventry Hills School has several ways to communicate with our parent community.  We have gone to a paperless society and in doing so it is important parents stay in touch via our new school website, school messenger and your child’s Google Classroom. Occasionally, paper copies with school or classroom information will be coming home. If it is on blue paper, it is important because it requires information to be sent back to school in a timely manner.  Coventry Hills School Council will continue to communicate in multiple formats including paper according to feedback that parents liked having paper copies regarding their initiatives. 

In addition, teachers will continue with the Google classroom format and will be sharing updates on their classroom twice a week about student learning on their stream page. The Google Classroom is a place where parents can experience firsthand what learning experiences the students are engaging in. For the most part, teachers will not be uploading assignments on their Google classrooms except for the older grades who use the Google Classroom as a teaching and learning tool consistently.   

Lunch Supervision:

If you child stays for lunch, please fill out the necessary registration forms through your MYCBE Account as soon as possible to ensure we have the correct information. If your child goes home for lunch, please notify the office by calling or sending us an email to coventryhills@cbe.ab.ca to confirm. Students who go home for lunch will be dismissed out their designated doors at 12:00 p.m. and will be at home for the duration of the lunch hour returning just in time for the end of the lunch hour at 12:42 p.m.  If you choose to have your child go home at lunch, we ask that remain in your care and that they do not arrive before the 12:42 bell as there is no supervision provided for the students in the front office. When students arrive at 12:42, they will just head straight to their classroom with the peers who are transitioning back from the lunchroom break.

Traffic and Bike/Scooter Safety

As the school year begins, parents may have noticed there are new crosswalk signs at two of our school’s cross walks.  We ask parents to be mindful of the increase of traffic that occurs at the beginning and end of the day. We ask parents to safely drop their child off at our HugNGo or park within designated areas on the streets of our school. We want to avoid anyone stopping in the middle of street to drop off students in order to keep traffic flowing and the students safe.  When parking, allow for space for our neighbours to access their driveways and do not block intersections near crosswalks where students are needing to have a line of sight. We ask that students are not dropped off in our staff parking lot as parents will be blocking the staffs’ ability to access their parking spot.

If you child is riding their bike or scooter, please review road safety with them including how to cross the intersections safely.  In addition, once they reach the congested sidewalks around the school, we ask students to dismount from their bike and walk it to the bike racks.  Bike riding on school property is not permitted.

We look forward to seeing everyone on Thursday, August 29. All teachers will be outside as of 8:30 a.m. on the compound in their designated areas except for Kindergarten.  Kindergarten teachers will be on the west side of the school and will greet families at the Kindergarten doors.

Sincerely,

Benita Dalton, Principal