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 25th and students in the whole school will have a day off of school on Tuesday, January 31st 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.