Thunder News Flash – September 22, 2018

Have you ever asked someone a question, but you were not too happy with their answer, so you continued asking the same question over and over again until you received the answer that you wanted to hear?  At Hymn Sing this week, Mrs. Gaudet spent some time exploring with the students what they think God would say to them in answer to their question “What do you want of me, Lord?”  One of the students answered that question by saying that God wants us to be “the best me that I can be”.  What a beautiful answer.  As we continue to explore our theme and ask God what he wants of us, we need to be brave and be open to the answer we hear from God, even when it isn’t the answer that we want to hear.

Permission slips went home this week to students in Grades 5 – 7 who are interested in joining the First LEGO League Club.  This Club will be participating in the First LEGO League competition in Victoria, which combines both knowledge and presentation skills, as well as robotics.  If you feel your child may be interested in joining this Club and they did not being home a permission slip, you can find the permission slip by clicking here.

When your children are outside on the playground at recess and lunch, they are socializing with their friends and having a great time.  For children who are finding it difficult to transition back to school after the summer break, or to school for the first time, parents may feel that they need to come and check on their children during the day.  This often takes the form of watching their children from the fence between the playground and the parking lot.  Unfortunately, this can create quite an upset for children who may be feeling a little bit anxious, and when they see their parents the small upset grows larger, often ending in tears.  If your child is having difficulty adjusting to school, please know that we will call you if they are having a particularly bad day.  Let’s work together to support each other so that school is the happy place it should be!

The next time that you do laundry, please check all of the uniform pieces that you wash to make sure they belong to your child.  With sports and P.E. classes it seems that many children have already lost or misplaced pieces of their school uniform.  If you find additional pieces, or items that do not belong to your child, please send them back to the classroom the next school day.  This is also a good reminder to label all of your child’s uniform pieces so that they can be returned if a family comes across an extra piece of school clothing!

The first meeting of the new school year for the Parent Support Group will take place at 1:40pm on Thursday, September 27th at Sippchai Cafe.  Elections of officials will take place.  All are welcome to attend, and if you have any questions please contact Helen Schriefers at 778-344-5228 or to email Helen click here.

We are happy to announce that Pablo and Nancy Longoria are helping the teachers to deliver instruction in the area of Information Technology, with a focus on coding skills.  While we are still working on a schedule for the classes and tweaking this as we go, they will be at the school approximately every second Friday.  We welcome their knowledge and expertise in this area!

The monthly Hospital Mass will take place on Sunday, September 23rd at 4:00pm at the Sacred Space in the Abbotsford Hospital.  Any students wishing to read, please meet Mrs. Wakely at 3:45 at the Sacred Space.  This is a wonderful outreach opportunity for our students and their families.

Many families have been asking to receive the class lists for social purposes that the school used to provide to families at Meet the Teacher Night.  In response to the many requests, all families will receive an email on Monday, September 24th with a link to a Google Form.  If you would like to have your family’s contact information included in a Social Contact List, please click on this link and complete the information in the Google Form.  The information will then be put into a spreadsheet, one list will be created for each grade, and these lists will be handed out to all the students whose parents completed the form.  We would like to get these contact lists out to families as soon as possible, so please make sure you complete the Google Form by Friday, September 28th at the latest.

By now most students should have signed and returned to school their Personal Electronic Devices and School-Based Technology Student Contract.  In that contract it clearly states that if students come to school with a Personal Electronic Device they must turn it off and store it in their backpack during the school day.  With the speed that technology changes it is very hard to create a list of items that we are talking about when we use the words “Personal Electronic Device”.  A good definition is “a wireless and/or portable electronic device that can be used for communication, entertainment, data management, word processing, wireless internet access, image capture/recording, sound recording and information transmitting/receiving/storing, etc.”  Personal Electronic Devices would include, but are not limited to, laptops, phones, tablet computers, projectors, wearable technology such as glasses or watches, and cameras.  It seems that the latest fad that many of our students are focussed on right now is smart watches – please note that these are considered Personal Electronic Devices and may not be worn at school.  If your children are wearing these to school they must be turned off and placed in their backpacks while they are at school.  We appreciate your support in this matter.

We will once again be using the Remind App to share important announcements with school parents, such as school closures due to snow or power outages.  This app was used during the last school year; however, since some families have left the school and many new families have joined, we have started a new group called “St. James and St. Ann’s School Announcements 2018-2019”.  All school families, new or old, who would like to receive these important messages must sign up to be a part of this new group by clicking here.