MELITA SCHOOL NEWS April 2015

MELITA SCHOOL NEWS April 2015
Principal’s Message
Welcome to our spring edition of the Melita School newsletter. As I am writing this message, it is
officially the first day of spring….but it certainly doesn’t look that way as the ground is all white and more is
coming!! Oh well, I guess that’s Manitoba for you!
We recently held another successful provincial event! Our high school provincial A/AA hockey
tournament was recently held here in town. Once again, we had lots of help to pull an event of this size off
successfully! Thanks so much to the many businesses from Melita, Waskada and surrounding area who
donated cash or items, to the parents for all their help organizing things beforehand and for working the
weekend of the tournament, thanks to all our volunteers…we couldn’t do this without you and thanks to our
staff and students who once again gave of their time to help one of our high school teams and show what
great school spirit we have here at Melita School!
We recently held a gym blast for our grades 5-8 and grades 9-12. There were lots of fun games and
lots of competition! At the end of it all, we all had a great time and did lots of team building activities…what a
great way to build upon our school spirit!
Our festival band concert was held in March. All of the performances were great! Thanks to everyone
who came out to listen to the entertainment that evening and thanks to Ms. Baird and all our of band students
for all their hard work….it sure paid off!
Our K-8 recently had reports go home. Our parent/teacher interviews were held on Tuesday March
th
24 for all students in K-12. If you were unable to attend the interview that night and wish to speak to your
child’s teacher, please feel free to phone the office and set up an appointment, we are always willing to meet
whenever throughout the year, it doesn’t just have to be at set interview times.
Recently our grades 3-8 had a guest speaker by the name of John Dunn. Mr. Dunn is an explorer and
talked to us about his adventures in the Arctic. His presentation was very interesting and he had some great
pictures! We used funds from student fees to bring Mr. Dunn here to our school.
As a staff, we have also gone over our survey results from the Tell Them from Me survey as well as the
Thought Exchange survey. We met and came up with a few action items in order to address a common
concern that was expressed thru both of these surveys. You will see the results and the action plan further on
in this newsletter.
Our spring book fair was also recently held. Thanks to everyone who came out to support this event,
proceeds from our book fairs go back into buying books for our library and classrooms.
Badminton practices are still underway. Thanks to all the staff and students who are coming out to
these. Competitions will be taking place in April.
On April 9th our grades 7-12 will have a presentation from MADD. We are looking forward to this very
worthwhile presentation and student fees are helping to pay for this as well.
On April 13th, our high school teachers will be working on reports while our K-8 teachers will be having
a professional development day. Reports for the high school will be out shortly after that. As usual, continue
to check the portal for updates on your child’s progress and if you ever have any questions, please contact
your child’s teacher.
That’s all for now….our spring break begins on March 27th…no classes that day and our first day back is
April 6th and that will be a day 1. Have a great break everyone and hopefully spring like weather arrives soon
and stays!
Please remember to check our school website for important links such as information on
distance ed courses that are available.
**New School Policy**
Late Policy – Senior High Melita School March 2015
If a student is late for class it will be recorded by the teacher. Once a student has
three lates for a class they will make up that time by serving a noon hour, before
school or after school detention in the office for 30 minutes. On your third late you
will be sent to the office to speak with either Mrs. Benton or Mrs. Harmon to
discuss when your detention will be served.
Late: If you arrive after the teacher has started the class
Unexplained absence: If you are extremely late and have missed a large portion of
the class. This will still count as a late as well.
Melita School Curling
We had 32 curlers this year from Grades4-9. What a great bunch to work with! We met at the curling rink
Mondays after school for 3 months. We finished off our season with a bonspiel. Thank you to all the parents
who helped out at our bonspiel by either working in the kitchen or bringing food. Our windup consisted of a
skills competition, trivia game, juice and cookies. We hope to see everyone back out next year. As our older
curlers continue we may even have some teams for zones next year!
Reading Buddies and Bowling
On February 13, the Gr ½ (Puhach) and Mrs. Kersten’s Grade 5/6 class enjoyed an afternoon of
bowling at the Galaxy Lanes. Special thanks to Mrs. Linda Jago and Mrs. Grace Renwick for
assisting us in this Valentine event.
Also, the Gr ½ (Puhach) and Mrs. Kersten’s Grade 5/6 class have been participating in our
Reading Buddies program. In lieu, of I Love to Read Month, the students have been paired
with their reading buddy once a week for 20 minutes. We began these sessions at the start of
February and will continue till the end of March.
Tell Them From Me
Results
Students/Parents/Community Members;
Back before the Christmas break, we had our grades 4-12 classes fill out an optional survey that was entitled “Tell
Them From Me”. This survey was voluntary and had a number of questions for our students to answer. These
questions were identical to the survey they previously filled out in the fall of 2013. The reason our division had the
students complete the same survey again, was to allow us to compare results and determine if how students were
feeling was getting better or not. The following is a short synopsis of the results of the two surveys and what we as
a staff are planning to do after analyzing these results.
Melita School
Tell Them From Me
Survey Analysis 2013/14
Elementary Survey (grades 4-6….29 students participated out of a possible 45)
A) Based on the results from our elementary surveys, a number of girls (45%) reported feeling
moderately to severely bullied (in and/or out of school), while only 11% of boys reported the same
thing. The Canadian norm is 26% for both girls and boys.
B) Based on these same results, our student’s grades reported our advocacy rate (feeling as if they have
someone to talk to at school who consistently provides encouragement and can be turned to for advice)
as 6.2 out of 10. The Canadian norm for these grades is 4.9
C) 33% of the girls reported feeling safe at school while 67% of the boys reported feeling safe at school.
The Canadian norm is 67% for girls and 68% for boys.
D) Students in grades 4-6 rated positive teacher-student relations as 8.3 out of 10. The Canadian norm
is 7.9
Secondary Survey (grades 7-12…99 students participated out of a possible 110)
A) Based on the results students rated effective learning time (important concepts are taught well, class
time is used efficiently and homework and evaluations support course objectives) as 7.3 out of 10. The
Canadian norm is 6.5
B) Students in this school rated relevance (students find classroom instruction relevant to their everyday
lives) as 6.7 out of 10. The Canadian norm is 6.
C) 28% of the girls and 37% of the boys reported feeling moderately or severely bullied (in and/or out
of school) in the previous month. The Canadian norm is 20% for girls and 25% for boys.
D) 72% of students reported feeling safe attending school (up from 2013 results), the Canadian norm is
65%.
E) Students rated advocacy (feeling as if they have someone at school who consistently provides
encouragement and can be turned to for advice) as 2.9 out of 10….this is slightly higher than 2013
results. The Canadian norm is 2.7.
F) 30% of students planned to pursue a trade or apprenticeship program (up from 2013 results), the
Canadian norm is 21%.
G) 51% of students had aspirations for pursuing a post-secondary education (down from 2013 results),
the Canadian norm is 66%.
Action Plan
Based on the results from both surveys as well as the Thought Exchange survey, the staff at Melita
School determined that bullying still seems to be a problem that needs to be continued to be dealt with
at all levels. The following are some ideas that we plan to continue to implement and some new ideas we
are going to try in an effort to help lessen the number of incidents of bullying:
- Continue to support and have events such as Day of Pink promoting awareness and team building as
well as school spirit.
- Continue to support clubs such as our Equity and Social Justice groups and work with them to bring
more awareness to our school on cultural diversity.
- Bring in experts on social bullying such as RCMP to speak to groups and bring more of an awareness
on what can happen if you cyber bully people and what that means.
- As a staff...we are trying to use our school Restitution kits more to promote empathy within our
classrooms and also to teach coping skills amongst our students and what to do when things feel like
they are going wrong.
- -Working with our guidance counsellor to come up with more ideas for our "hot spots" and how to
help these particular groups
- Continue to work with our student council to promote more school spirit activities in the hopes this
will break down some barriers between students when they have to work together to accomplish a
task.
- Foster relationships with our students by continuing to have our TAG groups within our high
school...thus helping students to feel they have someone to come to if they have a problem.
- Continue to be diligent about staff being in the hallways to supervise “breaks” in order to give less
unsupervised time for students.
- Continue to explore the possibilities of older students being mentors and role models for younger
students.
- Continue with our peer communication programs such as the social clubs that help teach students
how to deal appropriately with situations amongst their peers.
- Embark on more cultural awareness beginning with our own staff in order to foster a better
understanding of cultural diversity which in turn can be passed on to our students…thus ultimately
developing a better understanding of differences and thus a better acceptance.
There will be a special day for pre-schoolers who were born between June 1, 2011 and May 30, 2012.
At that time we will have a Speech Pathologist, a Physiotherapist or Occupational Therapist and a Public
Health Nurse available to discuss the development of your child.
In order to ensure that we have adequate time to complete each child’s assessment, we will be seeing
children by appointment.
Parents of children born between these dates that have not received a letter from the Public Health office and
would like their child to attend, please contact:
Stacie Gardiner Graham RN,BN
Public Health Nurse
Prairie Mountain Health
Deloraine Office (204) 747-1820
Melita Office (204) 522-4312
Upcoming Band Events
- April 11-15; Sr. Band trip to Edmonton Cantando Band Festival
- April 24th; Pulled-Pork Supper Fund Raiser at Melita Legion, all band members will be expected to help
- April 28th; Brandon Level 1/2 Band Festival (day trip) for grade 7/8 band
- June 10th: Lunch 'N Listen concert, all band members - 12 noon in the gym
- June 23rd; gr. 6 noon concert in Morrow Park
- Next band parent meeting Tuesday April 7th, 6pm in the Band Room, everyone welcome
Dates to Remember:
March 27, 2015
March 30-April 3, 2015
April 6, 2015
April 13, 2015
May 18, 2015
June 26, 2015
June 30, 2015
Admin Day No classes
Spring Break
1st day back after Spring Break
PD Day No classes
Victoria Day
Grade 12 Graduation
Admin Day No classes
Melita School Students & Staff are excited to announce the 2014-15 Yearbook Production Team. Team members
include Jenna Trider, Miranda Brigden, Steward Pulinney, Logan Tilbury, Delaney Elliott, Rienna Skelton & Cyrell
Gayumba with advisers Mrs. Kristof & Marie Tilbury. Members meet every Wednesday at lunch in the computer lab to
work on the project. Teachers are asked to submit class photos to the school dropbox as we want to do a page spread
on every grade this year. As well, coaches and group leaders are asked to submit photos and write-ups. Pictures from
students and parents can be sent to [email protected]. Yearbooks go on sale November 1. $35. Reserve your
book today! Orders to be submitted to the school office with order form and cheque of $35 made payable to Melita
School. No extra copies are ordered so get your name on one today! All K-12 individual student Lifetouch photos
included, class photos as well as a variety of school activity shots and write-ups highlighting our year at Melita School.
Melita School 2014-2015
YEARBOOKS
ORDER
On Sale Now!
Student Name__________________________
Grade_________
Hardcover K-12 Yearbook @ $35.00
Total Amount enclosed $______
Cheque payable to Melita School.
The yearbook will be sent home with the student in September unless special instructions for pick up are
given below
___________________________________________________________________________________
Inquiries can be directed to [email protected]