PRINCIPAL’S UPDATE

MARCH 5, 2008 

Even with all the stormy weather lately, this is a very productive time for students at Hernewood.  With the Heritage and Science Fair on March 11, all grade seven and eight students are working feverishly to get all research, experimenting and presentation of topics ready. 

Our grade nine social studies students are doing a unit on "Earth as a Global Community" where they realize that one child dies in Africa every thirty seconds from Malaria.  As a result our students fundraised throughout Winter Carnival to purchase Malaria nets to help those people - even if we only bought a few nets, then some people there would benefit. 

Our Breakfast Program (every Wednesday morning) is going really well.  There is an increase in the number of students eating so we are hoping for an increase in concentration and learning. 

Our basketball season is over and our teams did well.  Next is badminton, then track & field, golf and softball.  As well our Knight of Columbus Free Throw Basketball competition is over and those winners move on to the Provincial Competition. 

The Honor Band went over very well for our Grade 9 students.  Right now Mrs. Ellis is planning for the Atlantic Band Festival in Halifax in May. 

History & Travel Club is also very busy with fundraising and booking accommodations and starting to pay in advance for different events for its trip in June.  Ongoing are the school’s efforts to help students develop as responsible youth to go on this trip.  The vast majority of them are growing and maturing in this area. 

We continue to work on our School Development Goals.  We have completed two thirds of our Writing Program Training and hope to finish that program in April with May and June as practice months with our students.  Next year should really be its first year of implementation.  Our Healthy Eating efforts are on going and Peaceful School activities and projects happen all year long. 

Technology wise, we’ve ordered another LCD Projector and Smart Board to heighten the learning experiences for students in the Math Wing.  We are able to fund these new pieces of equipment from the Extra Funding rebate from the Western School Board which is intended to be used to help us enhance learning. 

I attended a meeting on February 26^th with the Western School Board and the French Department of Education to look at evaluating the Enhanced French Program at Hernewood.  At that meeting we discussed the difference between an "intensive" french program offered ie: O’Leary and the "enhanced" french program offered here.  I also emphasized the need for more teaching staff if we were expected to extend this program into the grade eight level.  I also expressed concern that this program in no way decrease the numbers of students in the French Immersion Program. 

We are now in the process of transitioning students from the five elementary schools to our school, and from our school to Westisle.  An exchange of information re: Educational Assistant Needs of the students with Special Needs for the 2008-09 school year, has already occurred.  This week I am visiting four of the five feeder elementary schools and Westisle Administration are visiting our grade nine students and parents re: Course Selection for grade 10.  In April the grade 6's will visit our school.  In May the grade 9's will visit Westisle.  Besides all this, our resource teachers visit the schools to obtain information on grade 6 students needing resource support here.  So as complicated as all this seems, it is an ongoing process to ensure new students do well at our school and then successfully transition to Westisle. 

APRIL 2008 

It’s hard to believe April is here.......please note that our website is finally up and running and there will be changes, growth and development to it over the next few weeks.  John Robertson is the person spearheading the school website.  We were able to purchase a new stand alone computer and camera for this through the monies we received from the School Board’s "Extra Funding". 

April 18 is our final day of Banked Time allotted to us through the Department of Education.  Our day will focus around our three School Development Goals:

a) Written Expression - Audrey Buchanan will continue to train us in the final Two Traits of The 6 + 1 Traits of Writing 

b) Healthy Eating/Active Living - Our focus here will be around what activities we continue/drop or add for this rest of the school year and the beginning of next year. 

C) Peaceful School - the school will look at what has been done so far this school year and what will we put in place for the last quarter of the year. 

As well we will do follow up planning/work as a result of our interactions with Westisle in the November banked day.  Both staffs describe that sharing of information as being both informative and very valuable. 

Over the next few months we will be fundraising for IWK and Easter Seals as well as our History & Travel and Band which travels to Halifax in May 2008.  It is always a balancing act to keep fundraising to a reasonable amount - given the socioeconomic area in which we live.  As well both the Provincial Heritage and Science Fair will be underway in the Spring and we have excellent representatives from our school in those events. 

Scheduling and staff planning for the 2008-2009 school year is well underway.  Patti Sweet puts much time into the process involved in getting teacher and student schedules time tabled for each school year.  For example, this is a time consuming onerous task.  One of the areas our staff has revisited is the whole area of our leadership class and within the next couple of weeks, changes will be finalized.  This will then be encooperated into our scheduling process.