January 17, 2025
Dear Banff Trail School Families,
In elementary school settings in the CBE, 3 larger events occur during the month of January: CBE’s registration period, the Government of Alberta K-3 Assessments, and the release of January report cards.
Registration for CBE schools and programs began this past Monday. For existing Banff Trail School students, there is nothing more for you to do at this point; if Banff Trail School is your designated French Immersion School (as is the case for most families here), then your child’s registration continues on through to grade 12 in the French Immersion programming stream (meaning Banff Trail School, followed by Branton School, and then William Aberhart School), without the need for you to do anything more. If you have another child requiring registration (since they are beginning school for Kindergarten or Grade 1), then you can follow the registration steps found on CBE’s registration page. Of course, you are welcome to connect with our school’s office if you have any questions around this process.
The Government of Alberta has mandated that all students in Kindergarten to Grade 3 participate in a series of assessments. Most of this testing must be done in 1 on 1 situations, and thus we have decided to employ substitute teachers to release Banff Trail School teachers to do this testing with individual students. For Kindergarten, these tests are to be performed in January, only in English, and include a Numeracy Screening Assessment (Numeracy), the Letter Name-Sound Test (LeNS), the Phonological Awareness Screening Test (PAST), and the Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) test. Grade 1 students do the Numeracy, LeNS, PAST, RAN, and the Castles and Coltheart 3 Test (CC3), repeated at various points throughout the year (testing is done in September, January and May). Grade 2 students do the Numeracy, LeNS, and CC3 tests, also at various points through the year. Grade 3 students do the Numeracy and CC3 tests in September, January and May as well. However, all have some testing to do this month. Data is sent to the provincial government for analysis, and can be leveraged by teachers to inform future targeted support. Further information about this initiative and the assessments can be found on the Alberta Government website, here.
Report Cards will become visible for families on Monday, January 27th. Though this is but a snapshot and one piece of summative data about how your child is performing overall in some aspects of school, know that school conferences and check-ins with your child’s teacher can also help offer timely, specific feedback about how they are doing, and what can be done to further support their academic, social, physical, or emotional development. Worth noting is that the CBE has adopted a new structure for comments found within report cards for grades K-9. You will continue to find comments under the headings of Areas of Strength and Areas for Growth, as in recent years, but phrasing of each bulleted comment has undergone some refinement.
Of course, the above are some of the ‘must do’s’ that happen in our school in January, but we are certainly loving some of the ‘extras’ that we have happening here this month, like the start of student clubs, the Alien Inline residency that is currently happening with our students, and the upcoming visit to the Olympic Oval, where our Grade 1 to 5 students are going to experience some World Cup of Speed Skating action. As always, a busy school environment for our students and staff!
For your consideration:
School Hours: As mentioned in May, bell time changes are coming to Banff Trail School! Although I have yet to be informed of how our school bell times will be adjusted (or by how much), I have been informed that due to changes in the Provincial transportation (ie busing) funding model, which in turn impacts city-wide school hours, approximately 200 of the CBE’s ~250 schools will be impacted. Since I have been told that schools will not begin before 8:00am, and will not end before 2:35pm, that means that our school MUST be impacted. I can certainly appreciate the importance of knowing bell times for our many families’ complex scheduling and child-care arrangements; once I am informed about the resulting changes for 2025-26, I will let our school community know.
Grade 1-5 Clubs: A big thank you to all of our teachers, who are again excited to offer a selection of lunch-time clubs during these colder months. Signup forms were sent home today, and students are placed into clubs on a first-come, first-served basis. Each club is limited in their enrollment…so please return these forms ASAP, beginning Monday! A copy of the form can also be found on the Clubs page of our website.
K/1 Open House: On Thursday, January 9th, our school hosted the annual Kindergarten/Grade 1 Open House, where we welcome prospective families to learn more about our school and French Immersion programming. It was very well-attended, with approximately 120 attendees. During this time, we also share some resources that may be of interest to our existing families. Of note, you can visit CBE’s Early French Immersion Program website, or the Canadian Parents for French (CPF) website. You may find interesting the excellent CPF document entitled 10 Answers for Parents about French Immersion, which addresses some common questions that parents have about French Immersion programming (including a set of referenced articles at the end of the document).
Morning and After-School Pickup/Drop-off: A reminder to not leave vehicles unattended during drop-off and/or pickup in the morning if you are using the Hug and Go area along the front of the school, to keep traffic flowing well (this is also a requirement as per the existing Calgary Parking Authority signage). Please also remind your children to make good use of our crosswalks; we want to make sure we create good traffic safety habits for all our students!
January School Spirit Day—Animal Theme: Our next School Spirit Day will be on Thursday, January 30th; this month’s theme will be “Animals, Animals Everywhere!” We invite students and staff to come to school dressed as your favourite animal, and/or wear clothing or accessories with animal prints, patterns, logos, designs, etc. This could include anything, such as costumes, shirts, leggings, or even simply our Banff Trail School T-Shirts or Tuques, which have our Wolf Logo! Please do not bring any stuffed animals to school for this event; only things that you can ‘wear’. Thank you!
Upcoming Dates:
January 20, 21: Alien Inline continues
January 22-30: Mission Impossible set up in gym
Thursday, January 30: Spirit/Theme Day—Animals, Animals Everywhere!
Friday, January 31: Non-Instructional Day, no school for students
February 10-12: Banff Trail School Carnaval celebrations
February 13-17: No school for students (Feb 13,14: Teachers’ Convention, Feb 17: Family Day)
Friday, February 28: Non-instructional Day, no school for students
Have a wonderful weekend with the family,
Ryan Turner
Principal, Banff Trail School