Dear Banff Trail School Families,
In my last Principal’s message, I wrote about some surveys and engagements that we are doing at the school, all with an aim to work towards constant improvement of the program that we provide at Banff Trail School. I felt so appreciative of the large number of families who took the time to complete the Program Monitoring survey that recently closed; we received 108 responses from parents, which is an incredibly high amount for our school of 386 students. This speaks to the generosity that we have amongst our families, and I want you to know that it does not go unnoticed. Some parents can offer time during the school day, which I see with parents who come to help our students improve their literacy skills, or with the impressive amount of parents I saw helping out with this week’s skating at Triwood Arena. I can appreciate that making time for these efforts can be challenging, but rest assured you are making a difference to our school community. Many parents are simply not able to help during the school day, which is completely understandable; in such cases, we have been fortunate to have some people help out in other ways, such as in building props for our grade 4-5 musical outside of school hours, donating to our School Society fundraisers, participating in School Council events or fundraisers, or…completing important surveys, as mentioned above. I know for a fact that very few schools have families with such a willingness or ability to offer their time, money, or support like this, but all schools would certainly love to have this type of engagement. So I felt that it was worthwhile to send a heartfelt thank you, and to say that I, and all of Banff Trail School’s staff, will continue to do our very best to keep offering a great schooling experience for your children.
As for the next steps in this pilot program, we will be analyzing the data coming from this survey with a cohort of adults who are connected to our school. This cohort includes our Assistant Principal, our Learning Leaders (Mme Sophie and Mme Heather), our grade 5 Teachers (Mme Mysyk and M Jones), our School Council Chair, a CBE Specialist from the Languages department, and myself. This will then be synthesized into a report that shares an overview of the findings, areas of strengths, areas to target for the next five years, and what steps we may take to work towards improvement. Once this work is compiled, I will be sure to share the data with you all.
A sincere ‘thank you’ for uplifting the work we do with students at Banff Trail School; it all makes a positive difference to your child’s schooling.
For your consideration:
Learning Conferences: As indicated in a recent email from the CBE, all March Interviews/Conferences are being moved online. This impacts our school, since we have interviews scheduled for March 20 and 21. Booking of conferences will begin at 4:00pm on Friday, March 14th. Further information will be sent home in the coming days.
Labour Action: A reminder that there continues to be a labour disruption involving our caretaking staff. Updates to this situation can be monitored here.
Skating: A big thank you to Mme. Stafford and Mme. Elizabeth for coordinating this year’s skating event at Triwood Arena; there is a lot of behind-the-scenes work that needs to be done to make this happen! Thank you as well to the many volunteers who helped with this event, to our School Council for providing funds for the ice times, and to Kidsport, who provides the Skate Shack free-of-charge to schools. Many thanks to go around!
Theme/Spirit Day: Our next Theme Day will take place on the final day of school before March Break, on March 20th. This coincides with the first official day of Spring, and so the theme will be: C'est le temps du printemps / It's Time for Spring! We encourage everyone to welcome the new season by accessorizing or dressing like, or for, 'Spring’. Be as creative with this as you like!
Upcoming Dates:
Thursday, March 20: Learning Conferences 3:45-7:45pm-online only
Friday, March 21: Learning Conferences 8am-1pm, no school for students-online only
Saturday, March 22 to Sunday, March 30, inclusive: Spring Break, School closed
Monday, March 31: School resumes
Wednesday, April 9: School Council, 6:30pm (to be held online if the labour disruption continues)
Have a wonderful weekend,
Ryan Turner
Principal, Banff Trail School