Welcome back! We are excited to have the opportunity to work with new and returning families again. This year is Aldergrove’s 30th year in the community. We look forward to working with the community to continue to Invite community, Ignite learning and Inspire leadership.
Over the summer our school hosted the Building Blocks for Learning (BBFK) program during the month of July. Our school was also under construction for most of the summer. We have a new roof on the school and are pleased to announce that over the summer in partnership with our student government, school council and through your generous support of our school, we have constructed an outdoor classroom and raised garden beds. We invite you to drop by the school to see these spaces, and encourage you to use them as this is YOUR school, and we welcome you!
Our staff at Aldergrove we will continue to engage our scholars in Inquiry through the lens of Social Justice. Join us for our first School Council meeting on Thursday October 5th at 6:30 p.m. We will be electing our Aldergrove School Council Executive for the 2017-18 school year and sharing news about our school this year. Our staff look forward to having the chance to meet with you on September 28th at 6:30 for our Meeting our Community night where you will have an opportunity to meet your child's teachers and learn about this year’s learning and our journey.
We have introduced “Leaning Nooks” to Aldergrove. You will find these spaces upstairs in our hallways near our Junior classes, and another Kindergarten nook will soon be ready. These spaces encourage our scholars to extend their learning beyond their classrooms creating a welcoming space for learning.
On Monday August 14th and Tuesday August 15th over 20 Aldergrove staff, YRDSB staff and visitors participated in a two day Social Justice Planning workshop. This workshop facilitated opportunities for our staff to further deepen our knowledge regarding Social Justice and how to implement curriculum through the Social Justice lens.
We will be adopting Edsby which is a new platform which will enable simple communication online or on your personal devices with your child’s teacher. There will be registration information in the package sent home on the first day. Please register and start using Edsby to stay informed of all the important work that is being achieved at Aldergrove.
We have several new staff members who have joined us this year. Please welcome:
Ms. Harrison (Kindergarten)
Ms. Sutherland (YR2/Grade 1)
Ms. Charters (Grade 3)
Mr. Alibhai (Teacher Librarian)
Ms. Ochba (Grade 7)
Ms. Logananthan (DECE)
Ms. Babaei (DECE)
Ms. Mathew (FDK Prep)
Mr. Khan (Performance Plus Teacher)
Ms. Diamond (Admin Assistant)
Adaobi Orji (CYW)
Dipti Patel (CYW)
Follow us on Twitter @Aldergrove PS to learn more about how we engage our scholars through the lens of Social Justice and our 7 Values. The school and your children will be sharing these themes with you throughout this school year. We recently posted “What empowers me in my role”…look at our Twitter feed or our YouTube Channel to hear from our staff about what empowers our #gamechanger staff.
During the first few weeks of school, we engage all our scholars through Camp Aldergrove. Camp Aldergrove is a way for us to as a school to build community, inclusion and start off the school year with a common focus. This year our scholars will starting in their homeroom class to answer the question, “How will we make a difference this year to our community?”. There will be opportunities inside and outside the school that our scholars will experience that will help them work towards answering this important question.
Please mark October 12th on your calendar. Our School Council will be presenting Paul Davis who will be working with our scholars discussing Social Media and Internet safety during that day and will be following up with a presentation to parents/guardians in the evening at 6:30 to help you keep your child safe online.
Uniforms
As a result of the Aldergrove School Uniform vote that took place within our school community during the 2014-15 school year, with a vote of 81% as per Ministry of Education guidelines, we are wearing our school colours as a uniform. Families can choose to purchase or use existing clothing as long as they are a plain white, red or black top (no logos/writing/images), black bottoms and simple black or white shoes. Students have been purchasing Aldergrove shirts and are welcome to wear them as part of their uniform. We created a video that has been shared you through our App, Twitter feed and on our website. You can find the video at https://youtu.be/OotCh0y0YmU
There are many more great things to come at Aldergrove. We continue to invite and engage our community, ignite learning through inquiry and social justice and inspire our leaders of tomorrow. With support from our school council, we will be sharing school news through Edsby. I
Yours in partnership,
Kevin & Rita