Hello Tom Baines families,

 

Hard to believe that September is almost over. It’s been a wonderful month full of exciting learning opportunities for our students. Grade 6 and 7 students heard from author Eric Walters and our Grade 6 students participated in Indigenous finger weaving. Teachers have also been busy completing benchmarking for our EAL students and are beginning the IPP process. If your child is on an individual program plan, their teachers will be reaching out to you to gather more information. Thank you so much for your support with this.

Please see below for important information.

 

Important Dates:

September 29 – No school to honor the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, which is September 30.

October 4 – Grade 6 vaccinations

October 9 – Thanksgiving – No school

October 11 – Grade 8 Band Camp Parent Meeting

October 12 – Drama/Film Field Trip

October 16 – School Council Meeting

 

Grade 6 PATs – Grade 7 students who wrote the PAT at Tom Baines last year will be receiving the official results soon.

 

Tutoring – Sir Winston Churchill high school students offer free tutoring for our students. If you are interested and would like more information, please check out this link https://outreachforyouth2.wordpress.com/

 

Attendance – one of the best indicators of success in school is regular attendance. Please ensure your child is at school on time every day. Reminder that Period 1 begins at 8:45 am so all students need to be at the school by 8:40 am.

 

BYOD – students are encouraged to bring their own laptops to school if they are able. Chromebooks are best and can be relatively inexpensive. If you would like them to bring a laptop bag for extra security, we can accommodate that.

 

Parking Lot and traffic – please do not enter our staff parking lot when dropping off and picking up students. It is not permitted. As you know, it gets quite busy in front of our school before and after school. Please plan accordingly and encourage students to walk to school or drop them off a few blocks away and have them walk. October 2-6 is national walk to school week. We encourage all students who can, to walk to school. Our crossing guard program will be starting up again in the next few weeks.

 

School Council – we had a very successful first school council meeting on September 18. All of our positions are filled and are below. Our next meeting is October 16 at 7:00 pm in the Learning Commons and we encourage everyone to attend.

Chair: Maureen Morrison

Vice-Chair: Lan Fu

Treasurer: Jen Conley

Secretary: Scott Livingstone

 

Casino Chair: Margo Weber (next casino is February 20-21, 2024)

Key Communicator: Sean Hittel

Committee Chairs, Volunteer Coordinators and Staff Appreciation: Amanda Potapinski and Vanessa Horsman

Grade 9 Farewell Lead: Janice Spence

 

Thank you for all of your support. We are looking forward to an amazing October.

Derek Siakaluk, Principal

Jen Bartlett, Assistant Principal