As seems to be the case every year, it feels like we’ve already been here for months instead of weeks, as so much seems to fill the day and the before and after school times for the students and staff at Hanley Composite School. It’s great to see the students back in the school and in the gym and on the field. The SRC is also busy making plans for the year’s events and we’ll look forward to their contributions to our positive environment at school.
High School students are settling into their timetables, and our encouragement will be that parents be involved in conversations with their children about credits and prerequisite courses for any programs students may want to enter after Grade 12.
We welcome the new students to our school, including our Grade 7s from Dundurn. We hope you make plans to have the best year you can and remember, now it’s your school too, so get involved! We have a total beginning enrolment of 230 students this year K-12 which is up a little from last year, and also, great to hear!
This morning, our new Kindergartens made a tour through the school, stopping by the office on a scavenger hunt of clues about our school. It was great to see the wonder and curiosity on their faces as they begin their education in the school system today.
We have a number of teams that have been at practice and competing already this month. We’ll be looking forward to hearing the progress and the accomplishments of the Senior Girls, Junior Girls, and Junior Boys Volleyball teams, the Junior Golfers, Cross Country runners and the Football team this fall. Students should continue to do their best to become involved where and when they can as it continues to make their experiences at Hanley Composite School the best. I heard mention this week of a Chess club starting as well – sounds like a great idea!!
I’d like to give a formal welcome to the three interns we have added to our staff this fall. Mr. David Woods will be joining Mr. Graham, Miss Nicole Andre will be joining Mrs. Bain, and Miss Chantelle Fransoo will be joining Mr. Kirk in their courses as well as teaching a lot of those courses over the semester.
I like to update you when I can over the improvements to our school and grounds to keep you aware of changes. We spent a $10000.00 grant this summer on four sets of permanent bleachers for our track and field area, six metal benches, and netting for the hockey net frames in the court area we worked so much on last year. I’d like to give a big thanks to Dwight Thall for his work in auguring out the holes for the benches. The grant was awarded last spring as part of our improvement proposal for the court area and grounds – thanks again to Darice Carlson, the Town of Hanley administrator, for her work applying for this grant. Another grant from the Roughriders made it possible to finish the siding of the Football Shed this last week! The materials were provided by Prairie Steel. I’d also like to thank James and Marie Mann for their generous donation of a new scoreboard for the Football Field! Plans are in place for it to be mounted in the ground as soon as we can this fall, with mounting beams supplied by Elance Steel and Mike Prosofsky and the electrical work to hook it up by Ryan Grindheim. For a guy like me, the bigger numbers are going to be a lot easier for my old eyes to see. Thanks to each of you mentioned for your support!!
That’s all for now. For further information and updates from the students and classrooms, check out our school website at https://blogs.spiritsd.ca/hanley/. As always, Mr. Anderson and I would love to talk to you if you have time to drop by the office or give us a call. Talk to you soon.