It has been a great start to the year and I am excited to be joining the Grade 3/4 class for part of this school year! We have a bunch of exciting things happening right now. In ELA, we are working on a unit called “My Friends and I”. In Math, both Grade 3 and 4 classes are exploring different kinds of patterns. In Science, we are learning about structures and have been on several structure hunts around the school! In Social Studies, we are exploring our world and trying to learn a bit about our new friend Windy’s previous home in China! We have also done a few fun Arts Ed. projects and will be bringing home our letter hangings at the end of September. The Grade 3/4 class is an energetic group who are showing their excitement for learning new things each day. I am looking forward to spending the next few months together!

Miss Adelman

It’s been a great couple of weeks back at school! The students are settling into a nice routine. In ELA, we are spending September reviewing the alphabet letters and sounds, numbers, and colours. We are starting to learn sight words, which will be written in the planners every week so that you can focus on those words at home as well; there will be five new words each week that both grades will learn to read. The grade two’s did awesome on their first spelling test last week….what a good start to the year! Starting next week, the grade two’s are going to be picking some chapter books from the library for home reading. The grade one’s will be bringing a notebook home from time to time called “My First Stories” where they can show off some of their new reading skills! In math, the grade one’s are learning about patterns with Mr.  Woods-Fehr, while the grade two’s are learning about patterns with me. We are starting a unit on Senses in science, Safety in health, as well as Belonging in Our World for social studies. Please feel free to pop in for a visit if you have any questions or concerns!

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.

September 13 was the first day of Kindergarten. It was a GREAT day! We read stories, played in the gym, visited the library, played outside, AND went on a Pete the Cat scavenger hunt around the school. I can already tell that we are going to have a very fun year together!

A few important things:

• Picture Day is on Friday, September 20. We switched the K day from the 19th to the 20th for this reason. Kindergarten is usually the first class to go, so we should still be looking good by then (I’m not speaking for myself!).
• There is a pizza sale every Friday at Hanley School. It is $3/slice. If K falls on a Friday, I will send an order form home earlier in the week.
• September Kindergarten dates: 13, 17, 20 (Picture Day), 23, 26 (Terry Fox Day), 30
• October Kindergarten dates: 2, 4, 8, 10, 16, 18, 22, 24, 28, 30, 31 (Halloween)

Our class motto is: Be Nice! So, if you start hearing this frequently in your homes, you’ll know why!

Enjoy the rest of your September! I know we will!

-The Kindergartens & Mrs. Martineau

Finally, school comes to an end, and for us it will be our last month in Hanley School forever. We have been busy getting ready for Grad, but now that it is over, we get to focus on our stud- ies once again. And what do our studies consist of? Learning on our own, basically. We have been doing Independent Research Projects in all of our classes, except for Phys Ed and ELA, the class in which we dabbled in the world of Shakespeare and read Hamlet.

Now we face the world full of ambitions, waiting to see what we will become! To be, or not to be, that is the question!

– Alexander

Grade 11’s are splitting their time between studying for finals and wakeboarding. Not a bad life! Hard to believe we will be going into our grade 12 year. We wish everyone a Warm, Fun and Fantastic Summer! See you all in the new school year!

Well, we’re almost at the end of the year! The grade 10’s are hunkering down to study for their final exams in most clas- ses. There’s still some things going on that don’t involve noses pressed deep into textbooks, while pens hastily scrawl notes for later perusal (ok, so mostly they’re just texting each other and googling answers they’re not sure of, watching the odd You Tube clip – finals have changed a bit over the years, I guess…). Anyway, in Social, they’re playing The Game, which involves trying to take over the world, or at least take someone with you, if you go out in a blaze of glory. In IA, they’re working on house wir- ing and the Home Ec class just wrapped up with a delectable meal of ribs! Good luck on finals!

Well, the Grade 9 camping trip has come and gone. It was amazing. Thank you to all of the chaperones who came with us. You worked hard and we know this trip cannot happen without you. Thanks also to Harold who drives a bus like no one else. School itself continues to be invigorating even though Spring fever has hit hard. In ELA, we have had some very interesting discussions and worked through some fascinating case studies about people who were faced with incredible choices in Nazi Germany. What is the difference between a child soldier in Sierra Leone and a Hitler Youth member in World War II? Why do we feel so differently about them? Our Sunflower study has really challenged us. In Social Studies we’re learning about globalization. Where in the world would be the best place to build a chocolate bar factory? We based our decision on availability and cost of resources, as well as labour costs and ethical practices. Pretty fascinating. In Health class, we continue talking about Adolescent issues and relationships. Math has us looking and working with the basics of angles, circles and trigonometry. Good stuff. Science has us looking at cells, the building blocks of life. It’s been a great year and we thank all the teachers and staff for making it so. See you next year!