The Patriot Report – November 18, 2022

“As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace.” ~ 1 Peter 4:10

One of the greatest gifts I have received is the gift of faith. Having faith in God is not without its challenges. Like Jacob of the old testament, I feel that at times I have wrestled with God. I have been angry with God. And at times, I felt extremely close to God. One of the encouraging themes of scripture is that we are not alone in the struggle of faith. Then again, if there was no struggle, would it really be faith?

Caring for the gift of faith, being a steward of faith, does require work on my part. Like a steward of the land who tills the soil, plants the seeds, and keeps the weeds away, a steward of the faith prays, reflects, reads scripture, is part of a parish community, and, most importantly, lives the faith by their actions. This is the challenge of being a steward of the faith. 

Each of us have received gifts from God and we each need to use that gift to serve others. What our Christian faith gets right is that the world will be better if we each use our gifts in service of each other.  

The Gr. 3 class took to the local environment to learn about biodiversity, invasive species, and the ecosystems that are near to our school. There were many highlights to be sure and their excitement from seeing squirrels was truly delightful. The fog certainly made for a colder day but the students were grateful for no rain. Other highlights of the day included seeing a coyote from a distance, seeing the ducks at the Central Park pond, measuring the width of a tree, and riding the skytrain.

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

Purdy’s Chocolate

Proud Patriot’s T-Shirt Order Form

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

On November 30th, our Gr. 7 Student Ambassadors will be available to provide tours of our school to prospective families. If you know of someone who might be interested in attending St. Jude School, I encourage you to tell them to sign up for a tour. Any interested family can use this link to sign up for a time: https://www.schoolinterviews.ca/code/hyynb.

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

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.