All Saints Blog Week of January 8th, 2018

Happy 2018!

I would like to wish our entire All Saints Community a happy start to 2018, and all the best in the new year.  January will be a busy month back at school.  Grade 9-12 students will continue to work on summative tasks in classes, with exams running from January 25th to 30th (All Saints Exam Schedule - Semester 1). To assist with exam preparation, we have some opportunities for students listed below.  Term one report cards for our 7&8 students will be distributed in mid-February.  Finally, a reminder that our School Council meeting for January is on the 22nd at 7:00.  Please join us!  Be sure to scroll down to the bottom of the blog to check out the school calendar with additional dates.

Student Exam Preparation

To assist our grade 9-12 students with their mindfulness preparation ahead of exams, we are running two support programs:

Mindfulness preparation - Our Mindfulness room will be opened each day during exams beginning at 7:30 am.  This is a chance to take some quiet time to reflect/regroup ahead of, or after exams.

Study Skills Session - Grade 9-12 students are invited to join our school Psychologist Dr. Richard Bolduc for a study skills session ahead of exams on January 10th.  Students need to sign up for the session in student services.

Student Immunization information

The Immunization of School Pupils Act requires that students in Ontario be vaccinated against nine diseases, or have a valid exemption. It is the responsibility of parents to report all immunizations to Ottawa Public Health, and every year OPH reviews these records to ensure that the information is up-to-date. The process is designed to prevent infectious disease outbreaks and protect the health of our students.

Please be aware of the following timelines:

1. November: parents received notices informing them of any gaps in the immunization records for their child(ren).

2. January 15, 2018: Suspension notices will be mailed to families who have not yet complied with the requirements under the legislation.

3. February 7, 2018: Suspensions will be enforced for any remaining students whose records are still not up-to-date.

Purchasing Options for Student Technology

As we continue the implementation of Deep Learning across the Board, and increasingly seek out opportunities to leverage digital to support learning, access to enough devices in each classroom is sometimes an issue. Our Board has been investing in technology for many years and will continue to do so, but the demand is rapidly increasing as students are starting to do more and more of their schoolwork online using the collaborative tools available.

BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) is a strategy that has been successfully implemented in many of our schools to help support student access to technology. Many families are seeking advice as they consider purchasing a device for their child to use both at home and at school over the next few years. As a result, we have been working with Staples Canada to provide OCSB families with access to an online portal where they can find information and pricing on a few models of Chromebooks that have been specifically recommended by our Learning Technologies Department. These recommended devices are the same durable machines we are using in classrooms, with full keyboards, cameras and touchscreens that also flip over to act as a tablet and were not previously available from Staples.

Please see the parent letter outlining the program here.

There is a great deal of information on the CSPA website regarding information for parents and upcoming sessions.  You can visit the website here.

Communications:

Check out our blog – allsaintschs.blogspot.ca and our twitter @AllSaintsCHS (Mr. Kelly’s - @seankellyottawa) as well as our website ash.ocsb.ca for all that is happening at All Saints!

Coming Up:

January 22nd (7:00pm): School Council meeting