The Patriot Report – December 14th, 2018

The other day I was walking into the school, carrying my laptop bag and heading towards the door leading to the stairs. As I approached the stairs, I looked up and one of our primary students was holding the door open for me. I said “thank you” and he responded with the customary “you’re welcome.” This moment, although simple in nature, is a perfect example of good will and respect. To hold the door open for another is a small gesture but one that communicates that the other is important and worthy of respect. We should be proud of our children who display such respect for others. We should encourage our children to always be courteous and well mannered. We should be proud of ourselves that our school has such amazing and respectful children.

With Mrs. Cowper set to go on maternity leave in the new year, the Parish Education Committee is pleased to announce the hiring of Mrs. Cruz for the Gr. 5 teaching position. Mrs. Cruz comes to St. Jude School with 10 years of teaching experience, most recently at Our Lady of Good Counsel in Surrey. Mrs. Cruz’s first day will be January 7th, 2019!

On Monday, we have our Christmas Concert (see below). We ask that students come to school in their concert costumes unless their costumes are already at the school.

On Friday, December 21, we will have a Christmas Colours Dress Down Day! Come and show your Christmas Cheer!

We are very excited to share with you news of the upcoming Christmas Concert. On Monday, December 17th, St. Jude School will be performing their concert “The Nativity Story.”

Please note that there will be TWO performances on that day. The first performance will be at 2:00 p.m. If at all possible, we encourage you and extended family members (grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc) to attend the afternoon performance. The evening performance will be at 7:00 p.m. Doors open at 6:30pm. Please ensure that your child is sent to their classroom by 6:45pm.

The PEC have issued two tickets per family for the evening show so that we do not become overcrowded and in violation of the fire regulations. Tickets have been sent home with your child today. Tickets will be required in order to enter the gym for the evening performance.

Each class is representing a different part of the Nativity Story. Please find listed below the items needed by each grade. If you have any questions, please contact your child’s teacher. We ask that you send your child’s costume to school for our dress rehearsal scheduled for Wednesday, December 12th, 2018.

Yours in Christ,
The Christmas Concert Committee

Kindergarten – all black clothing.
Grade 1 – all white, tan or cream coloured clothing. Khaki coloured pants is acceptable.
Grade 2 – all black clothing.
Grade 3 – either all black, all brown or all white clothing. Your child has been assigned a specific colour. Please check your child’s agenda book.
Grade 4 – Sunday best or party clothes.
Grade 5 – Formal concert wear: black top and black bottom. Colourful scarves to be used as sashes – red, green, blue or orange colours.
Grade 6 – Formal concert wear: black top and black bottom
Grade 7 – Formal concert wear: black top and black bottom

Please contact your child’s teacher if you have any questions. Thank you!

St. Jude School is starting to field registration questions from interested new families. In order for us to know how many spots we have available we need to hear from our existing families that have children who will be entering kindergarten. Some families have already contacted Ms. Goh at the office with this information. We ask that if you have a child who will be entering Kindergarten in September 2019, please email Ms. Goh at office@stjude.ca. Please also include the child’s name and date of birth in the email.

St. Jude School is asking for your donations of canned and packaged food. The Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society provides food to more than 30,000 people in need each week. Many of these are women and children. They are especially most grateful for donations made during the Christmas season. Starting next week until Friday, December 21st, please kindly donate food items in the boxes provided at the school’s front entrance under the Christmas tree. (Please send unexpired packaged or canned food only.) Thank you in advance for your generosity.

Thank you everyone for supporting the Purdy’s Chocolate fundraising event. Together we raised approximately $1500 that will go toward the Grade 7 promotional ceremony. Merry Christmas to you all and enjoy your chocolates!

As an administrator it is my desire to always have school be in session. However, I cannot put students and staff at risk in the event that road conditions become treacherous. Our school is a commuter school in that the majority of our students are driven to the school and our staff comes from various neighbourhoods. This presents unique conditions for our school that must be considered when discerning whether to close the school due to weather.
The school will communicate a closure due to weather through the school website and through email using our mailchimp service as well as Remind. Please understand that the decision to close is never an easy decision and numerous factors are taken into consideration.

We will begin to use the Remind messaging app. The purpose of this messaging service is to quickly and effectively message the community when important information needs to be disseminated right away. Please follow the instructions shown below:

This week the grade three celebrated the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe by learning about the story and the miraculous image. Then we created our own version of this image, with a little bit of artistic license and a lot of creativity!

On Friday, students got together for our Advent Prayer Service assembly. The students used symbols of the Jesse Tree to teach us about important spiritual truths. The readers and the students who acted their parts did a wonderful job.