Dear Parents,

We had hoped in these final days of being in the existing Maple Grove that we would be able to celebrate with you. We want to honour the years that the existing Maple Grove has been wonderful and served so many students and families. Further, we look forward to celebrating the opening of the new Maple Grove. We hope you checked out the email with the virtual link (thank you Mr. McDonough).

Thanks also to Ms. Bartlett for a wonderful intermediate exercise on writing about a memorable moment from a different perspective.

I would like to thank and acknowledge Moncia Antonio and Angela Barrington-Foote for continuing as PAC Chair and Treasurer. And I’d like to welcome Jenna Ma as the Secretary. Thank you in advance for your energy and enthusiasm towards making teaching and learning opportunities for students engaging and plentiful.

Revised Restart Plan – New Building

Schedule Change

In an effort to keep the two schools separate during recess and lunch, the district has adjusted both school’s schedules to enable each school to have alone time on all the playgrounds. In other words they each school gets their own recess and lunch

8:30-8:45 CE Buses Arrive
8:45-10:30 CE MorningSession
9:00-11:00 MG Morning Session
10:30-11:00 CE Playground Recess
11:00-11:30 MG Playground Recess
11:58-12:28 CE Playground Lunch
12:28-1:00 MG Playground Lunch
1:00-2:45 CE Afternoon Session
1:00-3:00 MG Afternoon Session

Essentially we have taken 15 minutes from the lunch and added it to recess; thus making recess 30 minutes. As most of our playground behavioural issues take place in the final 15 minutes of lunch we view shortening lunch as a positive step.
With the addition of the new North field and Adventure Playground; as well as the South climbing apparatus and swings; we see this as a welcome extension and increase to the MG play space. By separating the two schools and providing for their own playtimes, we will NOT mix the two schools and keep them separate. By keeping the two schools separate, it allows us to have each school on the playground at separate times.

As such, we have the following spaces for Primaries

• Front grass of Existing MG
• Primary Adventure Playground
• South basketball court (tennis court)
• Primary all-weather field
• Courtyard Kindergarten West
• Courtyard Primary West
• Courtyard Primary East

And for Intermediates

• North all-weather field
• North basketball court
• North Adventure Playground
• South Swings + Climbing wall
• Magee field

We are confident that while students tend to play in their learning groups, they are able to socialize with other students from other cohorts as long as they are outside and exercise increased distance. Our primaries have a designated schedule for playing on the Adventure Playground. They rotate and switch depending on the day.

The BC School guidelines are what we use and are part of our teaching for students to decrease physical touch, increase physical distance, and practice hand hygiene on a regular basis throughout the day.

Our intermediates and primaries play separately as the intermediates are excited about no longer being primary students and having the choice to play in 5 grown up areas of the playground. They usually don’t mix with primary students and like the mobility to move with around the playground while physically distancing. Our motto is increase physical distance; decrease physical touch.

We needed these changes to ensure supervision and coverage could be effectively used to ensure student safety. We were stretched and losing coverage each time an SSA was absent and not replaced with an EOC. We are confident this new process will ensure student safety.

Twitter

Twitter… with the move to the new building we are looking at our workflow and how we can be engaging with families. Sharing interesting activities around the school is fun and informative. We have activated our Maple Grove Twitter. maplegrove_ you can follow us there. We will NOT follow you back. We intend to use this as a one-way communication tool to share school events/info.

Holiday Hampers

Maple Grove Elementary is continuing our school’s tradition with our Holiday Hamper Drive. This is to help families in need at our sister school, Nightingale Elementary. COVID means a very different version of the “Holiday Hamper”. We cannot accept any donations of food or other gift items, nor can we package up colourful and fun hampers for the families.

However, we can accept monetary donations through vsb.schoolcashonline.com. If every student at Maple Grove donated a minimum of $5.00, (of course donations above $5.00 would be most appreciated) we would be able to purchase a nice number of gift cards from Nightingale’s local grocery store to give to the families. We are all aware of the difficulties and hardships that many people are facing with the global pandemic. Some people are more harshly affected than others. Gift cards will be a safe way to provide some extra holiday cheer to these needy families.

Maple Grove’s Student Council will be making announcements to encourage our students and their families to be generous. The collection period will be November 25th to December 9th. Please watch for an email from SchoolCashOnline and give generously.

Maple Grove Pac Website (Click to enter)

November 27th – Pro D Day, no school for students

December 18th – Last day of school before the winter holidays

January 4th -First day back from the winter holidays

January 5th – reentry to in class learning for Option 4 students