WARDEN AVENUE PUBLIC SCHOOL



HEATHER HEIGHTS JR. PUBLIC SCHOOL

BEN HEPPNER VOCAL MUSIC ACADEMY

80 Slan Avenue, Scarborough, Ontario M1G 3B5

(416) 396-6305 @ HH / VMA Anja K. Belter, Principal

Principal’s Message

It’s been a great first month of school! Summer seems like a distant memory as we move into the second month of our 2018 – 2019 school year. Due to larger than anticipated student enrolment, we had a reorganization in the third week of school. After the addition of one new junior classroom, the reshuffling of our kindergarten students as we gained an ECE, and new timetables all around, the students and staff are settling into their new classrooms, mastering new routines, and becoming familiar with a new set of educational expectations.

Our initial safe schools assembly was held for all students on the first day of school. The structures, routines and expectations which are in place to ensure Heather Heights and the BHVMA are safe and secure learning environments for all were outlined to all students. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s teacher for clarification. So far, our students are showing themselves to be super citizens!

Our School Council meetings are open to everyone; please consider attending to become more informed about what is happening at the school and to ensure your voice is heard! Child care is always available if you need it; we will ensure that your kids are supervised while you attend the meeting down the hall in the library. Our next meeting is October 3rd at 6 p.m. in the library.

It was wonderful to see all of you at our Curriculum Night; many of you are familiar with our school, but with a significant number of staff new to our community – including the principal! -- we were pleased to meet you! We were also pleased to welcome so many new families to HH / BHVMA. I hope all of you heard our message in regards to calling any time you have concerns or questions; we are here to support you and your family, and we take that responsibility very seriously.

Photo Day is coming up! Please have your child(ren) ready with their best smile on Wednesday, October 3rd. Please see the monthly calendar attached to this email for other important upcoming dates.

Have a great month!

Kids Have Stress Too! Workshop for Parents and Kids

We know that regardless of how much we try to shield our children from it, stress impacts everyone. Children as young as four can experience stress; it looks different throughout the developmental stages of our children. Join us for a two hour workshop, delivered by Toronto Public Health nurse Erika DaSilva, while you

Become aware of childhood stress, including what it is and how it impacts children

Learn positive coping strategies you can teach your children on how to manage stress

Share experiences and coping strategies with other parents and caregivers.

While you engage in this learning, your children will be participating in their own Anti-Stress workshop, including a Kids’ Bootcamp run by Ms. Williams, yoga hosted by Ms. Belter, mandala colouring with Ms. Petropoulos, a Peaceful Recess with Ms. Rendek, and healthy snacks!

This session will be held Thursday, October 11th, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

A minimum number of registrants is required to run this workshop; please call the school at 416 396 6305 to register, and let us know if your children will be attending with you so we can arrange for child care and snacks for them as well. Please don’t hesitate to call or email Anja Belter with any questions you might have.

From Toronto Public Health

Toronto Public Health will be visiting your child’s school to provide free vaccination against three diseases. The vaccination package was sent home with intermediate students in the first week of school.

The vaccines available at the school clinics are not free at doctor’s offices. Protect your child against meningtis and cancer. Please complete the consent form and return it to your child’s school by September 18th. For more information, visit the Toronto Public Health website or call the Immunization Line at 416-392-1250

If you received a letter from Toronto Public Health, please update your child’s immunization record with Public Health using one of the following options:

• Phone: 416-392-1250

• Online reporting

• Fax: 416-338-2487

If your child does not have all the needed vaccines, please contact your health care provider.

Why is my Child Bringing Home Garbage?

As an eco-school, we are committed to not only reducing our carbon footprint, but also to raising awareness of waste in society. This year, we are continuing with our ‘boomerang’ lunch. Any waste products which are produced by your child’s lunch are to go home with your child in your lunch bag. The reason? Firstly, we want to create a very concrete awareness in our community of how much waste a child’s lunch can produce. We are hoping to see more Tupperware and thermoses, and fewer single serving food items, from which the wraps and plastic end up in landfills. We have found that when children are responsible for bringing home this waste, they become more thoughtful about how to prepare their lunches. As well, food waste that is sent home can go into your compost and reduce the amount going into landfills. And finally, we weigh our garbage regularly at HH / VMA – we want to create less garbage each year. By sending home lunch waste, we will create less garbage at our school. Thank you for supporting our boomerang lunch, and thank you for your commitment to waste-free lunches for your child!

No Peanuts, Please!

Please remember as you pack your children’s lunches and snacks that we request that no peanut products be brought to HH / VMA. We have a number of students with life-threatening peanut and nut allergies. Please also remind your children that to prevent exposure to possible allergens, we remind students not to share food with anyone.

Anaphylaxis is a serious allergic reaction that can be life threatening. This medical condition can cause a severe reaction to specific foods or other materials, and can result in death within minutes. Although foods such as peanuts, milk, eggs, and sesame seeds are the most common cause of anaphylaxis, insect stings, medicine, or latex can also cause a reaction. In recent years, anaphylaxis has increased dramatically among students. The TDSB is committed to maintaining a safe and healthy learning environment for all students and works with Toronto Public Health and other partners to ensure the successful implementation of Sabrina’s Law, which came into effect on January 1, 2006.

Although this may or may not affect your child’s class directly, we want to raise awareness about this life-threatening condition. Students who have severe allergies to such food substances are exposed to a severe health risk when such products are consumed in their environment or shared with them. Prevention is the best approach, we so we ask that you speak with your child about not sharing their snacks or lunches with other students and please do not send any snacks or lunches with your child that contain peanuts.

If your child has health problems of any kind, please inform your child’s teacher immediately so that the necessary health protection steps may be taken and to ensure everyone’s co-operation for a safe learning environment. Whether you are living with the allergy yourself, caring for someone who is, or concerned about people in your community, more information about life threatening allergies is available on the Anaphylaxis Canada’s web site at

or by calling 416-785-5666.

Halloween

Many families in Canada celebrate Halloween October 31st. As always at Heather Heights / VMA., celebrations are being planned for the day. More information about the day will be shared closer to the date. If your child does not participate in Halloween, we will ask you to contact the school closer to that date and alternative arrangements will be made as needed.

Supervision of Students

Please note that students are not to be at school or on school grounds before 8:30 in the morning when supervision begins outside. We also ask that students who go home for lunch do not return until 12:20, as we have limited supervision over the lunch hour. The only exception to this case is when a student has made prior arrangements to meet a teacher or if s/he is participating in a scheduled club meeting or team practice. Thank you for helping us keep our students safe by respecting these supervised times. Students from grade 1 – 3 who are picked up late will stay outside with the yard duty teacher until 3:30, when they will be brought into the office for supervision. We expect students in grades 4 – 8 to walk home, unless we have been told that s/he should be waiting for an adult. Please respect our school hours and be on time to pick up your children.

Lockdown and Hold and Secure

In TDSB schools and classrooms across the city, students and staff are establishing the foundations for a successful year. One of the ways we know we can help students be successful is to create a safe environment in which to learn. Though no one ever wants to see an emergency happen at a school, it’s important for school staff to be equipped to deal with those situations, should these occur.

Equally important is the need for parents/guardians to be informed if an emergency should ever occur and to have as clear as possible an understanding of what is happening at their child’s school. We practiced our lockdown procedure on Tuesday, September 25th at HH / VMA.

The Board’s Threats to School Safety Procedure are as follows:

Hold and Secure –Hold and secure means that all movement in and out of the school is restricted; however, movement within the school is not restricted and the external danger near the school poses no immediate threat to the students or staff unless they leave the building.

Lockdown – A lockdown is the most serious response to a threat to school safety and is used only when the danger is inside the school or on school property and poses an immediate and serious threat to staff and students. In this scenario, students are restricted to their classrooms with locked doors and drawn blinds. Cell phone usage is strictly forbidden during a lockdown.

The updated Threats to School Safety Procedure (PR.695) is available on the Safe and Caring Schools webpage on the Board’s website at tdsb.on.ca. The TDSB is committed to making each and every one of our schools caring places that are safe for learning and a part of that commitment is keeping our parents/guardians informed.

During the month of September the character trait focus of the TDSB, and our school, has been Respect. Congratulations to the students who were recognized for demonstrating the trait of Respect!

|Ms. Boddaert |Nihal K. |

|Ms. Pollard |Avneet K., Logan W. |

|Ms. Ferguson |Mytra E., Ardin F. |

|Ms. Maharaj |Vivien G. |

|Ms. Bridgeman |Tharani K., Levanah D. |

|Ms. Bacvar |Conor L., Ethan L. |

|Ms. Philipp/Ms. Singh |Amarie Y. Kavinmalar A. |

|Mr. Mayo |Aisviya S., Kieran S. |

|Mr. West |Tanujan T. |

|Ms. Huang |Precious M., Mackenzie R. |

|Ms. Lee |Kyan S. |

|Mr. Mekni |Jade W., Sylvia M. |

In the month of October, we will be recognizing students who demonstrate the character attribute of Responsibility. Your child can show responsibility by taking care of her/himself and others in the family; getting up on time, getting ready for school, and having breakfast; completing homework and keeping her or his school work organized; helping with household chores without being asked, and by keeping promises. Questions to discuss with your child might include: What is responsibility, and what does it mean to be responsible? What are some of your specific responsibilities at school, at home, and in the community? How can acting irresponsibly affect others? Projects you can do together to encourage responsibility might include assisting your child with organizing her/his notebooks and agenda; involving your child in the planning process for family activities; holding your child accountable for her/his actions within the parameters of clear expectations, and teaching your child to be financially and environmentally responsible. To encourage responsibility in your child, remind your child about being responsible for her/his work every day by checking the agenda and backpack; be as patient as possible as your child learns to become responsible; encourage and praise your child when s/he demonstrates responsibility, and share an example of a situation in which someone you know behaved responsibly.

Terry Fox Fundraising

One of the most important lessons we can teach our children is empathy, generosity, and selflessness. Heather Heights and the VMA participate annually in the Terry Fox Fundraising Run because it gives us an opportunity to learn about a great Canadian hero, Terry Fox, who was diagnosed with cancer, and as a result of that cancer, had his leg amputated above the knee. While this might have been perceived by others as a tragedy, Terry Fox made his battle with cancer into an opportunity to educate others about how important it is to give to the organizations battling cancer, through his Marathon of Hope. He ran the equivalent of a marathon a day, regardless of weather, and regardless of the pain that his prosthesthic leg might cause him, and ran 2/3 of the way across Canada before his cancer returned and he was forced to quit his Marathon.

We continue to support the Marathon of Hope every year because we believe, as did Terry Fox, that the battle against cancer can be won. I had the opportunity to visit all the classrooms this past week to talk about a nine year old student with whom I worked last year. Nooha went home on the Easter weekend, and was not able to return to school because she had become ill over the weekend, and was diagnosed with brain cancer the day she was admitted to the hospital. The great news was that after brain surgery, radation and chemotherapy, occupational, physio, and speech therapy, Nooha is cancer free and is currently undergoing her final chemotherapy treatment at Sick Kids. Our students learned that it was kids like them, who donate to Terry Fox and other charities, who were real heroes who helped Nooha survive her terrible illness: the funds they raise help support the medicines, machines, and research that allow her, and so many others who are suffering with cancer, to not just survive, but thrive.

Many students came to school the following day with generous donations. One parent took the time to write about her son in grade 1: “Milan came home and told me he wants to ‘help take cancer away’. He told me the story about Ms. Belter’s student who had cancer in the neck. He then went into his own piggy bank and took out $70 and said he wanted to help take cancer away and for one one else to get sick. Please accept this donation on his behalf.”

To all of who donated what you could, thank you for your generosity, empathy, and selflessness in doing what you can to ‘help take cancer away’ and to make sure that ‘no one else gets sick’. I am so proud to say that we have smashed the fundraising goal we had set for HH / BHVMA of $800 -- We will be donating $1090.25!!!

~ Ms “Blue”

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