All Saints Blog Week of May 22nd, 2018

Ottawa Catholic School Board Strategic Commitments 

 Our School Board has outlined its strategic commitments for the next few years. The board has focused on a three pronged approach that focuses on Community, Wellness and Innovation.

The Board Vision - All students are inspired and guided to realize their spiritual, social and academic potential, and to take their place in the world as thoughtful, well-rounded citizens.

The Board Mission - Provide all of our students with a well-rounded education for the mind, body and spirit through an emphasis on academic excellence, social responsibility and Catholic values.

New 3 Year Board Spiritual Theme

In addition to our new Strategic Commitments, the Ottawa Catholic Board has established a new spiritual theme that will support our faith development and learning for the next three years. Micah 6:8 is one of the most popular lines in scripture and this First Testament verse of the prophet Micah has been described as the whole of the Christian mandate in one sentence. This theme gives us an opportunity to explore our growth in faith in three distinct ways:

YEAR ONE (2018-19): SEEK JUSTICE. How do we live our faith in action? Do we appreciate Catholic Social Teachings and the Social Doctrine of our faith?

YEAR TWO (2019-20): LOVE KINDNESS AND MERCY. How do we live our faith in our relationship with others?

YEAR THREE (2020-21): WALK HUMBLY WITH GOD. We are called to live an authentic faith, close to our God in lifelong discovery leading to transformation.

Arts Buy-IN
On Wednesday, May 30th we will be having our annual Arts Buy In. It will be during high school period 2, and grade 7/8 period 5/6. It will feature the fabulous dance department including dancers from grade 7 to 12, as well as our Show Choir who recently returned with many accolades from Show Choir Canada including first in their category. Classes will be asked to raise a small amount of money in support of CHEO - helping make a difference in the life of children, youth and families.

Graduation Retreat

Our grade 12 students enjoyed their graduation retreat this past Wednesday. It was an opportunity to revisit some of their memories, as well as review their hard work that has gotten them to this point. Special thanks to our Student Services department and our Chaplaincy Leader Lyndsay who organized the activities for the day.

School Council / Safe and Accepting School Team Meetings

On Monday, May 28th, we will be having our School Council and Safe and Accepting School Team meetings beginning at 6:15pm in our Learning Commons. Our School Council will review general events and happenings at the school with a report from our student council. Our Safe and Accepting School Team will review our school code of conduct ahead of next year. All of our parent community are invited to attend.



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:
June 6th - Grad rehearsal and Mass
June 8th - PD day

All Saints Blog Week of May 7th, 2018

Catholic Education Week and Child and Youth Mental Health Week May 6-12, 2018
Catholic Education Week provides us with an opportunity to highlight the many ways that we support our students in their cognitive, spiritual and emotional growth. May 6th to the 12th is also Child and Youth Mental Health Week across the province. The goal of this week is to raise awareness about the importance of child and youth mental health and to highlight that positive mental health is essential to a child’s healthy development. Having this double focus provides us with an opportunity to highlight to our school communities the important link between the work that we do to foster spiritual and cognitive development in our students as well as caring for their mental well-being.
Our Board Spiritual theme, Sent To Be The Good News, provides us with an opportunity to demonstrate through our actions, initiatives and messaging that we are committed to the well-being of all in our community. Pope Francis models for us what putting our faith into practice looks like: reaching out to the oppressed, the disenfranchised, the lonely and the impoverished. Being the Good News means being a voice for those suffering in silence with the stigma of mental illness and it means creating positive, inclusive, accepting and forgiving learning environments within our schools.

Grade 8 I-Cubed Activity - Investigate! Invent! Innovate! 

For the past few years, our grade 8 students have been involved with the ICubed innovation approach concentrating on project based learning for students. The activity focuses on providing students with opportunities to Investigate, Invent and Innovate across a number of subject areas. Our school presentation day provided a chance to see some great creations in person. Students were anxious to share the incredible work they had done with their inventions. Thank you to all the staff involved with this organization.

Easter Masses

Our entire All Saints School Community celebrated our Easter Masses this past week. Our theme centred on the fact that the feast of Easter is a month old, however, the liturgical season of Easter prevails until Pentecost. Our Masses provide us the opportunity to involve students in the organizing, mass readings, and musical performances. Thank you to Fr.’s Virgil and Daryold for again being generous with their time as they celebrated with us. Special thanks to our Chaplaincy Leader, Lindsay Moore-Chung for her continued organizing and support.

Cleaning the Capital

Once again, our All Saints Community participated in Ottawa’s “Cleaning the Capital” effort last week. Classes of staff and students got involved to participate in cleaning and organizing activities around our school community. Thank you to Marianne Wilkinson (Councillor for Kanata North) for joining us and getting our activity started!

Screenagers Movie - Presented by All Saints School Council 

Are you watching kids scroll through life, with their rapid-fire thumbs and a six-second attention span? Physician and filmmaker Delaney Ruston saw that with her own kids and learned that the average kid spends 6.5 hours a day looking at screens. She wondered about the impact of all this time and about the friction occurring in homes and schools around negotiating screen time—friction she knew all too well.
In SCREENAGERS, Delaney takes a deeply personal approach as she probes into the vulnerable corners of family life, including her own, to explore struggles over social media. Through poignant, and unexpectedly funny stories, along with surprising insights from authors, psychologists, and brain scientists, SCREENAGERS reveals how tech time impacts kids’ development and offers solutions on how adults can empower kids to best navigate the digital world and find balance. Our All Saints School Council has sponsored a screening of “Screenagers” to take place on May 10th at 7:00pm at the school. There is no cost to this event, however, we ask those interested to register at the follow site ahead of the showing:

https://goo.gl/forms/G0bSzUJkPGIew4Sx2


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:
May 16th - Grad Retreat
May 18th - PD day