Mustang Memo - February 8, 2024
Thank you to all of our parents who attended interviews this week! It was great to see families out with their children. We'd like to thank Mrs. Eng and her incredible parent volunteers who were hustling and bustling all night at the book fair.
As we end this short week, teachers are preparing to attend the teachers' convention. What is teachers' convention, you ask?
Every year, teachers go downtown to participate in the North Central Teachers' Convention. We meet up with colleagues from a few school divisions and attend a variety of professional learning sessions over the course of two days.
Sessions cover many topics from literacy and numeracy to ways we can engage students or support mental health. Our convention supports professionalism and enhances student learning by addressing teacher’s needs, supporting professional collaboration, advancing effective teaching practices and motivating reflective practice by exploring research and emerging educational issues.
While our students enjoy a long weekend, we get to be the students!
We'll see you next week!
Helene Hewitt & Jay Robertson
Principal & Assistant Principal
You belong here!
Table of Contents
Week At a Glance
Action
- Returning Student Registration
Opportunity
- School Council Meeting - This Week!
Information
- Counselor's Corner
- Black History Month
- Parents Make the Difference
WEEK AT A GLANCE
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ACTION
Complete your Returning Student Registration: February 8-21
Elk Island Public Schools’ (EIPS) returning student registration process is now open. All current students, except Grade 12, must complete the online Returning Student Registration Form to confirm their enrolment in a school for the upcoming 2024-25 school year. Additionally, students who want to attend a non-designated school need to make that request through the returning student registration process—acceptance is based on available space. All current EIPS students are required to complete the form by Feb. 21, 2024.
To complete your child’s returning student registration, refer to the Returning Student Registration Form email you received from Elk Island Public Schools via Permission Click on February 8. Families will receive one email for each student. No log in is required to complete the form.
For more information, contact the school directly.
RELATED INFORMATION:
Returning Student Registration Process
Applying to a non-designated school
OPPORTUNITY
School Council Meeting - This Week!
Our next meeting is this Thursday, February 15 @ 6:30 in the library. We will discuss themes from the fee survey as well as other items of interest to our parent community. Here is the meeting agenda:
February School Council Agenda
See you there!
Your DCE parent/school leadership team!
INFORMATION
Counselor's Corner
Test Anxiety
“Test anxiety is a psychological condition in which people experience extreme distress and anxiety before and during a test. Test anxiety is very common and can interfere with studying. Test anxiety may block performance and make it difficult to recall information that you know.”
“The causes of test anxiety are different for everyone, but common causes include: fear of disappointing parents, family or friends, fear of not reaching academic goals, connecting test results with how you feel about yourself, and in general having a predisposition for anxiety.”
Strategies for Students
“Test anxiety doesn’t just happen; it is connected to our thoughts and feelings. It is part of a cycle where we view the test as a threat, which increases anxiety, which lowers our ability to perform at our best. This can lead to poor results that increase our feeling of threat around tests. We can break this cycle by changing the way we think about tests. It’s normal to feel some anxiety but you can deal with it by finding coping tools that work for you.” -
To learn about specific strategies for helping your child cope with test anxiety click here.
Madison Bashaw & Kelley Mitchell
DCE Counsellors
Black History Month
The month of February is Black History month and a great opportunity to celebrate inspiring Black Canadians. Throughout the month of February, we will feature different influential Black Canadians on the morning announcements such as Albertan pioneer, John Ware, and Mary Ann Shadd who was the first Black woman to edit and publish a newspaper in North America.
If you are curious about some inspiring black Canadians from both the present and the past, check out this interesting website: Periodic Table of Canadian Black History
Each square of this periodic features a different inspiring black Canadian who has made an impact in the world through science, the arts, politics, activism, athletics or entrepreneurialism. Check it out to be inspired!
Parents make the difference
Here is this week's article with helpful tips for families:
Remember the three keys to discipline
Families and educators agree that discipline helps students learn and contributes to a positive learning environment. The main goal of discipline is to help children learn from poor choices and make better choices in the future—and the best place to learn it is at home.
To help your child learn from discipline:
- Remain calm. Giving in to an urge to yell at your child teaches that it’s OK to lose control when upset.
- Be consistent. It doesn’t take long for your child to learn whether you really intend to enforce rules. Give in just once to letting your child skip chores and you’ll have a battle every day. Set rules and consequences you can consistently enforce.
- Focus on behavior. Instead of criticizing your child, describe your child’s behavior: “It was your sister’s turn to use the computer and you wouldn’t quit playing your game.” Then, offer a reminder of the rule and of the consequence.
Reprinted with permission from the February 2024 issue of Parents make the difference!® (Elementary School Edition) newsletter. Copyright © 2024 The Parent Institute®, a division of PaperClip Media, Inc.