After a long Christmas break it was great to see our students back in the hallways and classrooms this month looking to get back to work and, for those students on semestered classes, getting ready for their final exams at the end of the month. As I mentioned in December, our staff changes happened and classes are moving ahead as planned with changes to the timetable. Mr. Carter is our acting interim vice-principal for the remainder of the school year as Mr. Hindmarsh is on a leave. Miss Brittany Nedelec joined us to work in the middle years and elementary classes as well for the remainder of the year. Welcome Miss Nedelec and Mr. Block to your new positions!

The last day before the Christmas Break we held our annual Christmas Lunch with the whole school taking part in the preparation, and everyone eating together in the gym. What a great tradition we were able to get back into place – thank you to Mrs. Schraeder for all your organization of the ingredients and the schedule of workers! Thank you to all the families for doing your part to provide those items to make it a success.

Final exams will start on January 25^th  and students in the whole school will have a day off of school on Tuesday, January 31^st as the school division has a prep day scheduled. We normally refer to this as our “turn around day” as the day after begins our second semester and our new classes and timetable.

Progress Reports will be available through EDSBY for grades 7-12 again at the beginning of February. The reporting is all done online this year with our new program. Many of you have said how easy it is to use the app and the division is clearing up many of the bugs we initially have found with the program. We hope the reporting in February is simple for you to access (and for us to complete :) ).

Our school extra-curricular programs are also continuing this month, with Basketball teams for Junior Boys, Senior Girls and Senior Boys practicing and playing. Curling for Junior and Senior teams has also kicked off and Badminton will start practicing after the February break. The SRC has done some wonderful planning at the Christmas lunch organizing the program, and held a movie night for elementary students on January 13. They also have upcoming plans for a high school event as well – stay tuned for more details.

Our School Community Council has raised some more funds through money raised on the Community Calendar project. They are directing a large amount towards a new playground project we have talked about. It is always a large amount to save for as those playgrounds are very expensive to install, but we have made a significant start. Thank you SCC for your interest on that project. The SCC also supported the SRC plans for engaging our students and plan to help us pay for some further signage around the school to display details of our School Goals in the form of the PAW the whole school helped create. The words RESPECT, ENGAGEMENT, INCLUSION and COLLABORATION are at the heart of what students and staff want to see at Hanley Composite School.

That’s all for now.  For further information and updates from the students and classrooms, check out our school website at http://blogs.spiritsd.ca/hanley/.  As always, Mr. Block and I would love to talk to you if you have time to send us a message or give us a call. We’ll talk to you soon.

We’re in the middle of a pretty cold week for the last days before the Christmas Break. The temperatures and windchill are bringing a combined reading lower than 40 below today! The school division’s policy of no buses running when it gets that cold has affected a number of day already this winter so we’ll have to see how many more in January. It’s good to see the students that do get here on those days to catch up on any missing assignments and to work with their friends and other students as well.

The SCC Hanley Community Calendars are finished and ready for pick up at the school office for those who ordered one. The picture was taken by Charlotte McGregor and we thank her for sharing it with us to use. Thank you as well to all the advertisers for their continued business and their ad on the calendar. Your support for our school is appreciated!

Our annual Christmas dinner is still scheduled on Thursday this week and it’s wonderful to bring back the tradition we’ve been fortunate to have had with students in the gym sharing a meal. Thank you to Mrs. Schraeder for organizing it!

Mr. C Freeden has been arranging a new activity for the high school students to take part in with a hockey game on Thursday afternoon at the rink after the clean-up jobs from lunch have been taken care of. Students and some staff members will play and many students are helping as well. We have some classes that will be going to the rink to watch and cheer them on.

The Basketball season is underway and along with my own Junior Boys team, we have Miss Randall coaching the Senior Girls and Mrs. Tasha Grasby volunteering her time to coach the Senior Boys. Thank you both for giving your time to those programs.

Next month will wrap up our first semester this year. We’ll send out an exam schedule in January for the exams that will fall between January 25^th and 30^th.

I think we’re working out the bugs in the Edsby program that the school division is now using for marks and attendance and report cards and communication. Parents can also use it to clear their student’s attendance before school each day if it’s needed. I wanted to thank you for you patience and your willingness to try something new. Many of you have reported that you like using it more that you did PowerSchool and that it’s a good change. Our next set of reporting marks for students in grades 7-12 will take place at the end of January and will be ready to access in Edsby at the beginning of February!

We’ll have some staffing changes after the Christmas break I can tell you about here next. Mr. Hutchinson will return after his leave and we want to thank Mrs. Stanley for her work the last five weeks she joined our school! Mr. Hindmarsh is taking an education leave starting in January to go back to school for the remainder of the school year. Mr. Block will be our Vice-Principal after Christmas for the rest of this school year, and some classes will be shifted as we adjust some schedules. Mr. L Freeden will assume some of the classes from both of them and we will welcome Ms. Brittany Nedelec to our school staff in January as well to take some of Mr. Freeden’s classes. Ms. Nedelec has subbed in our school recently this past month or so and is looking forward to her position.  

Thank you for a positive first four months of this school year and your support of our school, our staff and our work with your students. I wish all of you a wonderful Christmas season, and Season’s Greetings to everyone as well as you enjoy time with family and friends. The first day back for students after the break will be on January 9^th. That’s all for now.  For further information and updates from the students and classrooms, check out our school website at http://blogs.spiritsd.ca/hanley/.  As always, Mr. Hindmarsh and I would love to talk to you if you have time to send us a message or give us a call. We’ll talk to you soon.

Here we are on (hopefully) the other side of some nasty days of colds and flus that were battering down our student and staff numbers the last couple weeks. Thank you to families who were able to keep their students home when they started to feel symptoms and to those of you who made arrangements to come to the school to pick up your children when they started feeling tough. It appears that we’re back to our normal numbers again.

It was a great chance for many families to find some extra time with each other last week with the extended weekend on the school calendar. We have a full five weeks of school ahead for the students with only the Friday off before the Christmas Break. I’m sure most teachers are going to get as much teaching squeezed into those weeks as they can after some slower days that we had to start this month.

A few of our seasons wrapped up in November with Senior Girls’ Volleyball, Football, as well as Junior Girls and Boys teams having some great matches and lots of growth and learning in those sports. Thank you to all the coaches and to you parents for arranging driving to so many after school and weekend competitions. We’ve been highlighting a need for some volunteers to help coach some basketball teams this season ahead and have mentioned a few times that Senior Boys and Junior Boys and also Junior Girls could use coaches. If you have interest in Basketball and can offer your time to work with players, or you know of someone you can encourage to volunteer, please contact our office and let us know.

 Our grade 11 and 12 career fair opportunity on November 7^th was cancelled due to poor road conditions to travel. If I can find an online opportunity for the students this year I’ll set that up for them. We’ll make plans to attend next year’s again as it is a worthwhile event for our students and many post-secondary schools and career paths have booths our students can stop at and check out.

Cold weather has hit us in November and I’m sure by the long range forecasts we’re liable to see more of it this winter. Please continue to send good cold weather gear with your students to school for recess times to save them from freezing fingers and ears and also so they have a chance to enjoy the winter weather at the breaks. It’s also a good idea to check what your students being transported by a bus are wearing to school – no one wants to worry about a bus having engine trouble on a route but we can all prepare to have warm clothes in preparation for those times.

The Hanley SCC Community Calendars are being created this month and we’ll look forward to selling those calendars again in December. Please contact the school if the SCC members missed you and you want to add more details to your family lists. Also contact the school if you’d like to order a calendar for yourself this year and haven’t had one before.

The SRC is arranging our annual Christmas dinner again for students and staff and we’ll look forward to having that again before we head out for Christmas Break. Thank you all for your contributions to what has been such a wonderful time to get our whole school together.

That’s all for now.  For further information and updates from the students and classrooms, check out our school website at http://blogs.spiritsd.ca/hanley/.  As always, Mr. Hindmarsh and I would love to talk to you if you have time to send us a message or give us a call. We’ll talk to you soon.

I hope you and your family are feeling like we are here at school this fall – that it’s wonderful on many sides to be able to get back into our annual fall school routines and leave as much of that other stuff in our rear-view mirrors. The weather has really felt like fall is here and the trees are losing their leaves more and more each day.

Our Cross Country runners had a great showing at Districts and two runners qualifying for provincials this past weekend. Congratulations to Delaney M who was in the top ten!

The senior girls volleyball team hosted a tournament this past weekend at our school and our coaches, Kianna Dietz and Chery Randall, hosted a wonderful day along with the team and their parents. The girls were in the final game but lost in the third set. Great performance, Senior Girls!

Our Football team has had a strong season this fall and they have their first playoff game this Saturday at 1pm. Staff coaches Carter Block, Brandon Hutchinson, Linden Freeden and Chad Freeden, along with our senior intern Jacob Schilling have been working hard to help the team develop into a force to be reckoned with on the field. Best of luck this weekend!

The junior boys and girls volleyball teams are also moving ahead this fall with myself coaching the boys and our vice principal Josh Hindmarsh coaching the girls, with help from our intern, Kaleb Schulz.

We’ve been making families aware of needing some support this year on some other teams upcoming this winter. If we have some community members who are available to coach Junior Boys Basketball and Senior Boys Basketball, please contact our athletic director, Carter Block, for more details about how to get involved.

The fall Tri-Conferences are this week with interviews on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. Tuesday the SCC planned a free burger supper for those in attendance and it will run from 5-6:30pm. Contact Mrs. Block at the office if you still want to get an interview scheduled. Just a reminder that there is no school on Monday, October 24^th.

We are going to plan our fall trip to Saskatoon for the grade 11 and 12 to take them to the See Your Future career fair on November 7. Students will get a chance to interact with booths from about a hundred different schools and career booths in the morning and we’ll have them back at the school for afternoon classes.

The School Community Council will be making calls about the Community Calendar this month and ask for your interest in purchasing another one this year and as well to add any new information on it. If they miss you because you’re not on their list, give us a call in November and we can handle it at the office. We have a wonderful group of SCC members again this year led by our chairperson, Leah Weisbrod. Thank you all council members for supporting our school and school goals.

Mrs. Block and I were just talking about our new student information system called Edsby and I need to encourage any of you who haven’t signed in for it to do so as soon as you can – it will be the system our division and our school uses to track attendance, as well as deliver evaluation and a lot of communication as well. The app is quite simple to use when you check it out and we’ve heard from many already how much they do like it.

That’s all for now.  For further information and updates from the students and classrooms, check out our school website at http://blogs.spiritsd.ca/hanley/.  As always, Mr. Hindmarsh and I would love to talk to you if you have time to send us a message or give us a call. We’ll talk to you soon.

Congratulations to Callie Steen for her awesome performance at Provincial Track and Field last weekend! Callie recieved the gold medal for her 1500m run and another gold medal for her 3000m run! Way to go, Callie! We’re all so very proud of you!

This is Track and Field week for our school division and our Conference event is today in Saskatoon today – Good luck to all our competitors! I hope the weather gives them a chance to be competitive and we are able to have students move on to Districts and further as well.

Our Track season will be the last of the school athletics offerings this year but I know the elementary staff are still working on their plans for some June activities around track and field and First Nations activity day as well. Please stay tuned for more details that will come with that.

I’m super happy to let you know about another school building item that will help us in our warm summer weeks ahead and our upcoming fall weather also. The facilities department has started an air conditioning project in our school that began work about a week ago. Some new furnaces and air conditioning units will be a welcome addition to our school and help keep the temperature lower. Everyone knows how warm it can be in our building and so this project is totally appreciated by all.

We had an SCC meeting on May 9 and it was good to see some additional names and faces showing interest in joining our School Community Council. We discussed some future planning and how the SCC supports the school and the school goals that are also part to the school division goals. Thank you to the SCC for your ideas and feedback. It looks like we may have some work to do in June on some elementary events and then we’ll get to work again this fall.

Graduation is scheduled for June 10^th at a new time of 5pm and we’re able to move to exercises for the public back into the school this year. I know we’re looking forward to hearing about the student plans and life changes as they move on from life after high school. Congratulations grade 12 students! You’re almost at the end! We’re proud of you all!

Speaking of courses and finishing high school, a draft of course selections was given to students on Monday to help us make some plans for next years timetables and high school credits. Please talk to your grade 10 or 11 students about planning for life after grade 12 now so we can support them on their next few years. I’d like the draft choices back asap this week. Thank you.

My last paragraph before I sign off would be to give props to our SRC leadership students this year. Your work on helping find some fun days for the students of Hanley School this year was a focus of your own as a group and the students and staff all benefited from your efforts. Point in fact is the great afternoon of the gym blast last week and how much of a success it was – great job!

That’s all for now.  For further information and updates from the students and classrooms, check out our school website at http://blogs.spiritsd.ca/hanley/.  As always, Mr. Hindmarsh and I would love to talk to you if you have time to send us a message or give us a call. We’ll talk to you soon.

Congratulations to Hannah Helstrom, recipient of a University of Saskatchewan premier entrance awards, the Circle of Honour University of Saskatchewan Entrance Scholarship! The scholarship, valued at $24,000, recognizes the accomplishments and potential of exceptional individuals with high academic standing, demonstrated leadership and innovative thinking, and a commitment to community thinking. Way to go, Hannah! We’re all so proud of you!

It’s been a nice change for us to move back to some of our previous habits and annual traditions this last month. The staff has been commenting on it as well, but we all know that building up some of those routines and traditions will take some work and support. The SRC planned some activities this week and a movie for the elementary students on our ski day and it’s great that we can support their plans as they arrange a pep rally and spirit week dress up days, and leprechaun trap building, and more! Stay tuned for other details as the year moves ahead. To the SRC: we’re all super proud of your efforts and energizing these events!

Our grade 5-12 ski trip to Table Mountain was a great success and even though the cold weather that morning made us wonder if we’d indeed have buses to take us there, it was a great day of fun for the students and staff and we look forward to another day like it next year! Thanks again Mr. Block for arranging the day for everyone!

There was also some attention given to Pi Day on Monday this week as grade 7 classes had some fun activities with math and some apple and blueberry and pumpkin pie treats to go with it. Grade 7s also have a bake sale this week and a field trip planned later this month.

Extra-curricular activities and athletics are continuing as we move through the year as well. Our curling teams hosted districts here and the mixed senior team competed at Regionals but their progress ended there. Thanks to Mr. Freeden and Mr. Freeden for sweeping that one to the finish and both of them and myself will work with those students who are interested in Badminton this spring. Mr. Hindmarch also worked with the junior boys who wanted to practice some basketball skills after school in January and February. And I know that Mrs. Koroll has also looked ahead to Track and Field season and booked a T&F clinic day for students to kick off those events. As is common each spring a lot of staff help out supervising after school and we’ll look forward to the district meet in May for students to compete.

Thank you to Mrs. Jamie Blacklock for volunteering her time and efforts to coach the Senior Boys Basketball team this season. I know the boys appreciated the season to improve on their skills and compete against other schools that also had teams.

We have our spring Tri-Conferences scheduled for March 30^th and 31^st this month from 5pm-7:30pm on Wednesday evening and 3:30pm-6pm on Thursday. Many families have already booked interviews but there are still lots of openings for you to book yourself and your student in for. Call or email Mrs. Block and she can help you do that for an in-person, or online, or phone call interview of your choice.

Some of our grade 9 and 10 students have been chosen to take part in this year’s PISA testing across the country. Those students born in 2006 who are Hanley School students will complete an online test in May and the combined results will be used to help program plan for students across the country. 

That’s all for now.  For further information and updates from the students and classrooms, check out our school website at http://blogs.spiritsd.ca/hanley/.  As always, Mr. Hindmarsh and I would love to talk to you if you have time to send us a message or give us a call. We’ll talk to you soon.

We are a bit of a last stretch this week before the break in February and I can tell that families and students are probably feeling that the multiple days of cold and turbulent weather this winter has been enough for all of us. If we all hope and wish together, maybe our positive energy for it will have us all come back to warmer temperatures in March. That said we’ll all have to be considering whether March comes in like a lion or like a lamb and what the end of that month will have in store for us.

I know everyone is talking about the provincial announcement about masks and not requiring them after the break. The school division has done a great job of sending out updates all year as they get new information and so you’ll be aware that starting on February 28 we will not require students to wear those masks in school. I look forward to seeing those faces and smiles again after not having a chance for a couple years. I also look forward to meeting some students face to face who we’ve never had the chance to do that with before. That all said, we also want to support families and staff and students who are uncomfortable with the change and will encourage those students and staff to continue to wear the masks as they might need to. Please contact me if you’d like to discuss this and how we can support your student.

Our school year was split into quads for the senior grades this year after a school division survey completed last year by staff and students, as well as parents gave feedback in support. Another survey was sent out this year and the responses collected showed a variety of supports for quads and also for semestered classes. We will be connecting with students and staff in the school as well to hear that variety of supports for both and making timetable plans that reflect those answers and our current staffing levels and course offerings.

With the end of the month changes to the health mandates, much of our previous practices at school will return. Like many schools and staffs and students, we hope that some simpler days are ahead of us. Thank you again for your adjustments to our practices over the last school year and a half. Your cooperation through some difficult changes and restrictions is appreciated.

I wish you a relaxing and enjoyable break with family and friends and hope your students return on February 28 rejuvenated and ready for the next chunk of the school year. I’ll also leave you with a heads up reminder of the March 7 day of no school for students.

That’s all for now.  For further information and updates from the students and classrooms, check out our school website at http://blogs.spiritsd.ca/hanley/.  As always, Mr. Hindmarsh and I would love to talk to you if you have time to send us a message or give us a call. We’ll talk to you soon.

Well, I think I can speak for all of us here when I say it’s been an abnormal January to start the year off as far as school is concerned. That cold snap that pitted in with us in December managed to hang on through the Christmas break and keep it’s claws in us for the first week back to school, keeping buses from running and many students away from home. The latest round of COVID variant is also making this past week of school abnormal for classes and student progress as we near the end of this quad and semester one.

Parents, please push your students to help their teachers keep moving ahead in their courses by having them keep working on their school work while they are at home. Students have a year plan of course outcomes that teachers will be focusing on completing this year, and so teachers are posting assignments online for students who are missing school so they can work at home to keep caught up. Please have your students send in what they complete as it gets done, so there is understanding built up and checked. Teachers will assess that work sent in and provide students feedback as well including marks.

Not every home has an easy time in helping their students in this way and we know Google Classrooms and internet speeds don’t always work like we want them to. If that is an issue for your student, please have them contact the teacher, or parents are always invited to do the same.

The second quad as well as the first semester will finish at the end of January. Staff will have January 31  to grade final exams from the week before and mark assignments turned in by then, as well as prepare the grades on PowerSchool and prepare for the next quad. The parent/student view of PowerSchool will close January 24 and open again on Feb 1. That’s the start of the second semester and the third quad.

We’ve had nine recess days for the Cold Cats again and I don’t doubt some more might be still coming this winter. Let Mrs. Block know if you want to add your son/daughter to the list of students I’ll still take outside when the temperatures drop colder than minus 25 and indoor recesses take place.

PSSD will be sending out new surveys to parents, students and staff regarding block scheduling in quads as we were directed to do this year. Please take time to respond when you are able to as your responses have a definite impact on our timetabling and course selection for next year. The surveys should be shared in the near future.

That’s all for now.  For further information and updates from the students and classrooms, check out our school website at http://blogs.spiritsd.ca/hanley/.  As always, Mr. Hindmarsh and I would love to talk to you if you have time to send us a message or give us a call. We’ll talk to you soon.