Colts Connection - Parents Edition

It is hard to believe that another month has passed and we are already into February, the second Month of 2023. The warm weather this January was welcomed, especially after that chily December. January was a busy month with many different presentations to students and a Winter performance by our Kindergartens to their parents. February is typically a busy month with the week off for students after Family Day. That week is a week of learning for staff here at Ponoka Elementary School with two Professional Development days and two days of Teachers' Convention, along with Support Staff Conference for our Educational Assistants. As much as we welcome opportunities to learn, we always prefer to have our students in the building with us.

We are all excited for a fun February and all the different opportunities for our students like skiing, skating, after school basketball, Kindness Club, and Intramurals. Not to mention, some more special presentations for our students as well.

A huge "Thank You" to all of the volunteers who are willing and able to help out around our school. From those who help fill the snack bins each week, tie skates, join field trips, or help out in the classroom; we truly appreciate all you do to help make our school an amazing place!

We received funding from the COVID Learning Disruption Grant that was announced in November of this school year. This support is considerably less than it was last year, but we are still grateful to receive funding to support in this area. Mrs. Gwen Olsen was hired to start at the beginning of January for this position. She will be working with our Grade 1-4 students primarily, supporting Numeracy and Literacy through small group interventions. Mrs. Olsen covered some leaves for us in Grade 1 last year and has a wealth of experience at teaching students at different levels in her work as a Colony Teacher in the past. Welcome back to PES Mrs. Olsen.

A couple of years ago, a member of our School Council brought forward the idea of "Buddy Benches" to our School Council. Buddy Benches are not a new idea or concept but not something we have had in place at Ponoka Elementary. Buddy Benches are a place for students to go if they can't find someone to play with or don't want to play what their friends are playing. A designated group of trained students join the student and help the student either find something to play or invite the student to play with them.

Thanks to the support from School Council and Mrs. Hagemann, we have designated Buddy Benches on both of our playgrounds and a group of Grade 4 students who are ready to lead the way in being Buddy Bench "buddies". We are excited to see the positive impact this will have on our students, especially during recess.

Intramurals have started back at PES. After a 6 year hiatus, we have welcomed back intramurals for our Grade 4-6 students over the lunch our. We have kicked the intramural season off with Floor Hockey and will be moving into 3 vs 3 basketball after the February break. We over 100 students in Grade 4-6 participating in intramurals!

We have some new/updated Ponoka Elementary School clothing and accessories available to purchase. Later this month you will be able to log into your Parent Portal account and check out the new and updated items as well as the standard items that have been available from the beginning. We love seeing our students showing their school pride on their clothing! Keep on eye on our school website and Facebook page for the release date!

Wolf Creek Public Schools hired a Social Emotional Learning Facilitator last year and schools around the division have been able to book the SEL Facilitator (Andrea Ramage) to do a variety of different Social Emotional Learning lessons to different classes. This past week and into next week, Andrea Ramage will be in all of our Grade 3-6 classrooms to lead sessions on The Negativity Bias, Kindness Projects, and Me, Myself, and Mindfulness.

The Farm Safety Centre will be coming in next week to present to all of our Kindergarten to Grade 5 classes. The Farm Safety Centre is a non-profit organization that presents to different organizations to educate and empower rural Albertans about their safety, health, and well-being. We are looking forward to having these presentations for our students.

Skiing is happening again this year! We will be having one ski day per grade for our Grades 4-6 students. The Grade 4s will be hitting the slopes first on February 17th. We will be looking for parent volunteers for our ski days, since parent volunteers will not be under the direct supervision of the teacher, they will be required to have a Vulnerable Sector Check on file. The form to get this completed can be picked up at the office. Parent volunteers who will be helping get students fitted with rentals, get to their lessons, get tickets on etc., will have the cost of their lift ticket covered. Homeroom teachers will be reaching out for parent volunteers in the coming days, if they have not already.

A friendly reminder that the Calendar page (click here to get to it directly) on our school website is up to date with events and important dates like hot lunches, after school sports, field trips, etc.

Each year Alberta Education surveys all Grade 4, 7, and 10 students, and parents of students in these grades. The results are shared back with the School Division as well as the individual schools. If you are a parent/guardian of a student in Grade 4 you will be receiving a letter from Alberta Education with an access code and link to fill out this survey. We encourage you all to participate and complete the survey as we use the results to guide our planning here at Ponoka Elementary and we value your input into the continual improvement of our school. The survey information is to be mailed out to parents in the first week of February. If you have not received your access code by the middle of February, please contact Mr. McEntee and he will send you the contact information to receive your code. Last year 16 of a possible 75 families filled out the survey. The more people who fill out the survey the more accurate the information we receive is.

In last month's Colts Connection we had a short survey about accessing student progress through Parent Portal. We drew 3 names from the respondents and Terry R., Terry Y. and Carmen R. all received $10 Tim Horton's Gift Cards (assuming your child brought it home!). Thank you to everyone who filled out the form, the information we received was very helpful.

This month we have a bit of a longer survey that aligns with the survey sent to our Grade 4 parents/guardians. This survey information will be used to help guide our school's planning for next year and beyond. If you are a parent of a Grade 4 student we do ask that you fill out the school based survey as well as the one sent out by Alberta Education. The school based survey has some extra questions that pertain to our school specifically that are not included in the Alberta Education survey.

Since this survey is a little bigger, the prizes are a little bigger too. We will be drawing for a Bowling Night for 4 (2 adults 2 children), a Movie night for 4 (2 adults 2 children), two $10 Gift Cards to Tim Horton's, and two $10 Gift Cards to Timber Coffee Co.

The survey will be emailed to all Ponoka Elementary School families this week. If you do not receive the email by the end of this week please contact the office to verify the email address we have on file is up to date. The survey will close on February 17th.

The next School Council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, February 28th, at 6:30 pm at the school. All parents/guardians are welcome to attend.

February 1 - Winter Walk Day

February 9 - All Ski Forms and Payments are due

February 10 - PD Day No School for Students

February 13 - Subway Lunch Orders Due

February 14 - Red and White Day

February 16 - Pink Shirt Day

February 17 - Pyjama Day

February 20-24 - No School for Students (Family Day, Professional Development Days, and Teachers' Convention)

February 28 - Awesome Awards Assembly