The Patriot Report – November 11, 2022

“It’s not that we have little time, but more that we waste a good deal of it.” ~ Seneca

With Remembrance Day upon us, we must take some time to reflect on the heroic sacrifice of those brave men and women that sacrificed their life for our freedoms. The question we need to ask though, is what are we doing with the freedoms we have?

One of the most important things we can teach our children is how to use their time wisely. We should all be stewards of our own time. We need to be mindful of how we treat the gift of time. 

I encourage each of you to think of ways to bring time into the conversation at home. Reflect on how you spend your time but also how your child spends their time. How much time is spent together doing family activities? Do you give time to each other? Do you waste a lot of time on screens? Do spend any time on self care? Do you spend any time in prayer? A careful audit of how you spend your time will reveal much. 

Let us honor the sacrifices of the past by being more attentive to how we spend the present.

Interim reports were sent home with your children on Thursday, Nov 10.  

The Gr. 7 class is seeking your help with their (2) fundraisers:  

Purdy’s Chocolate

Proud Patriot’s T-Shirt Order Form

Thank you for the generous donations. We have boxed up the candy and we will be delivering it to Agape Street Ministries next week. 

The Grade 5 students, under the direction of Mrs. Chao, did a wonderful job leading the school through a thoughtful and meaningful Remembrance Day assembly. Special attention was given to Indigenous Veterans Day, which was celebrated on November 8th. As we continue to Seek Truth, Healing, and Reconciliation, it is important that our students learn about the many Indigenous Veterans that volunteered to fight in World War I and again in World War II to protect the freedoms of all. Their sacrifice, along with the sacrifice of many in the world, is what we honor this Remembrance Day. 

Several years ago, St. Jude School formed a School Growth Plan Committee that identified areas for educational improvement. The teachers wanted to target reading and writing as areas for improvement. Using data from the FSAs, DIBELS, ongoing reading assessments, and from School-Wide writes we were able to identify areas for improvement and support readers and writers in their growth. It remains a focus for our school. I am pleased to report that data from the FSAs does show that we doing exceptionally good work. I am very proud of the work of our dedicated staff in supporting our students. 

While I do not like to compare our school to another school, I do like to use data to see if we are improving over the course of time. The Fraser Institute compares schools, but it also shows how a school is performing over time. If we compare ourselves to ourselves we can see improvement and I wish to share those results with the wider school community.

I invite you to check out https://www.compareschoolrankings.org/school/bc/elementary/3996147

Please subscribe to our school calendar for a list of important dates. 

To subscribe to our calendar feed copy the link below and paste it into your calendar app:
https://stjude.ca/events/?ical=1&tribe_display=month

This past year we handed out $1200 in rewards to parents that referred students to our school. Every student that is referred and enrolls in our school for the year results in a reward of $200 for the the referring family. 

To learn more about the referral program, please click here.