March 2, 2018

PRINCIPAL’S MESSAGE

Dear Maple Grove Families,

It’s been another fun-filled week at Maple Grove. last Friday we welcomed young pre-schoolers to our Ready Set Learn event. RSL is a pre-existing program for preschoolers that develops awareness for early learning and literacy with adults. It’s a chance for schools to connect with their target audience for subsequent years. Friday’s event ran from 10:45-12:20. I wanted to thank Ms. Hales, Ms. Kao and Ms. Batsoulas for all of their time, energy and effort in making today possible. I also wanted to thank the teacher who supported our K team, and looked after our present K’s so that the preschoolers could work with our K teachers. Thank you also to all the staff, students and parents who supported the program.

bbeeeee Another event that took place was our Spelling Bee. Thank you Ms. Humeniuk for organizing and running this event. It’s a schoolwide favourite. Let me introduce you to the winners.

Thank you to all the staff, students and parents who came out to cheer on the participants.
pink day 2016 4 This week we had our annual PINK Day Assembly. Several classes made presentations to the whole school. We showed some motivational and inspirational clips on kindness and creating a positive culture at the school.

Robinson Crusoe + Friday Performance

Mr Naipaul on stage

Help from Student Council

On Thursday we had a visit from Axis Theatre Co, and a presentation of Robinson Crusoe + Friday. It was a delightful presentation for the whole school.

Lockdown Drill and Hold + Secure Drill

Earlier this year the school had scheduled a Hold + Secure Drill and a Lockdown Drill with our School Liaison Officer. Due to the timing of some other events at the school, we postponed practicing these drills until March.

We wanted to share with our school community that all VSB schools are required to practice drills and we regularly invite our policing partners to attend and provide feedback and suggestions so that we can work towards improving our drills. We are currently planning to have drills on:

Lockdown Drill – Tuesday, March 6 at 11:00 am

Hold + Secure Drill – Tuesday, April 17 at 11:00 am

It is our practice to provide staff, students and parents ample notice about these drills. These are drills. We walk through them slowly and with compassion so that they are teaching experiences for everyone. We do not want to traumatize or cause anxiety for our students, staff or parents. But, we do want everyone to know that we take these drills seriously and that we practice them so that we are prepared.

We ask that parents avoid being in the school at those times as they may get inadvertently caught in the drill. We anticipate each drill lasting 15-20 minutes.

Lockdown is used to protect school occupants from a dangerous person within the school, for example a person armed with a knife, firearm or other weapon and who is threatening or in the process of seriously harming people. Examples include armed person harming or threatening to harm others in the school.

Hold + Secure is when the exterior doors of the school are secured while normal activities continue inside the school. Hold and secure is used to protect the school occupants from a danger in the neighbourhood or community outside the school. Examples: police incident in the neighbourhood, suspicious strangers on school grounds, protests/civil disturbances outdoors near schools etc.

Maple Grove Chess Team

I am very pleased to tell you that Maple Grove School Chess Team has participated in 2018 VCS Elementary School Team Championship on Feb 18^th with great results!

Maple Grove ES Chess Program -Spring Registration WP_20180218_17_43_40_Pro