Archive | November 2013

The Pledge

thePledgeThis week marks Bullying Prevention Week, a very important week at Emily Stowe Public School as well as the Thames Valley District School Board. In 2010, the Ontario Government designated the third week of every November as Bullying Awareness and Prevention Week to help promote safer schools and a positive learning environment. This initiative builds on the Safe Schools education and activities already taking place in schools across the province.


The goal of The Pledge campaign is to reach members of the Thames Valley community with the coordinated and consistent message that bullying is unacceptable in schools and everywhere else in our community. The idea of “The Pledge to end bullying” is to engage everyone in making a verbal commitment to end bullying behaviour. On Monday morning at 10:00 am students at ESPS will take the following pledge as a school community:

“I believe that everybody has the right to feel safe, included, valued and accepted. I pledge to respect others and to stand up against and report bullying whenever and wherever I see it.”

While The Pledge began in Thames Valley, each year more communities are joining us. In 2012, Barrie, Kitchener-Waterloo and Windsor came in board. This year, people in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan will be taking The Pledge. Incidents of bullying and responsibility for bullying prevention are not restricted to schools; they are community challenges. Students at ESPS will participate in video messages all week long, one of many ways we seek to provide a safe learning environment for its students and the challenge to end bullying in schools. Mrs. Munro

Information taken from: http://www.tvdsb.ca/welcome.cfm?subpage=131492

1000 Acts of Kindness

randomActsPicLast week I witnessed enough acts of kindness to warm my heart. Some student examples included: looking for the owner of a found coat; returning a found loonie to the office; volunteering help at a volleyball tournament, changing the school sign, cutting out materials to help staff – to name a few. Acts of kindness, large or small, have a ripple effect that is contagious.

If you enter the school over the next few weeks, take a moment and look at our RANDOM ACTS OF KINDESS wall filled with hands that represent acts of kindness. It will leave you with a sense of hope that ESPS students have the power to make the world a kinder place, one act at a time. Kindness is one of many character traits that we focus on during our days at school. I leave you with a few lines from a poem that brings kindness all the way back to kindergarten. Mrs. Munro

 

Excerpt from: All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten

by Robert Fulghum

All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten.
ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW about how to live and what to do
and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not
at the top of the graduate-school mountain, but there in the
sandpile at Sunday School. These are the things I learned:
Share everything.
Play fair.
Don’t hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life – learn some and think some
and draw and paint and sing and dance and play
and work every day some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic,
hold hands, and stick together.
Be aware of wonder.

Taken from: © Robert Fulghum, 1990.
Found in Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten, Villard Books: New York, 1990, page 6-7.

Homework (Part 1)

homework-11Be a Mentor

For many parents, assisting a child with homework can become a point of frustration. Over the next couple of updates I will share some tips on how to help your child(ren) with their homework.  Remember that you don’t need to know how to do the homework to help. Talk to your child’s teacher.  When parents and teachers are on the same page students do better in school.

TIPS

  1. Praise successes.
  2. Don’t dwell on mistakes.
  3. Give them the confidence to seek help from their teacher.
  4. Help them track their progress.
  5. Use a problem solving model to work on assignments and projects.

 

(Taken from Parent Tool Kit  ontariodirectors.ca)