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St. John's Academy Newsletter - Dec 4
December 4, 2020
St. John's Academy Shawnigan Lake
In This Issue
• Head of School's message
• Victoria Times Colonist article
• Mr. Josh's elementary class
• St. John's Academy's Interact club
• Positive Discipline
• Physical and Health Education
• St. John's Academy's photos
• Upcoming important dates
• Next week's menu
• Notices
• Contact Us
A message from our Head of School
Dear Parents and Students,
Parent Teacher Meetings
Thank you to all of the parents and students that took part in our virtual parents’ evening on
Wednesday and Thursday. I hope you enjoyed speaking with your child/ren’s teachers and feel the
meetings were constructive. Please do not hesitate to contact either the school or individual
teachers if you would like a follow up meeting for any reason whether it be a technical glitch or you
have specific concerns where you need further feedback. It seems the students were involved in
most of the meetings, which is very much appreciated, thank you.
FACES
We also held a FACES meeting yesterday, which involved a lot of productive discussion on how we
can further develop our school. The minutes are available on our web-site or can be found by
clicking Dec 3 FACES minutes. All parents are welcome to attend these meetings which will be held
online through Teams for the foreseeable future. The next meeting is Thursday January
14 at 6:00 PM. Please e-mail Amy at [email protected] if you wish to be sent an invitation to the meeting.
COVID 19 Updates
Upon our request, we had a visit from the Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA) earlier in the
week where we asked them to review our operations. The feedback was very encouraging.
Following this meeting, our kitchen staff are now wearing masks throughout the day and we are
treating our Admin building as an office requiring that people wear masks when in the
building. Although not officially mandated, we are encouraging students to wear masks in
any common areas throughout the day. As per usual, we continue to mandate the wearing of masks
on the bus. Any student not wearing a mask will be reminded &/or provided with a mask. After a
warning, if a student is found to not be wearing a mask on the bus, they will no longer be able to use
the bus service for one week in the first instance. Fortunately, we have not had to follow through
with these consequences thus far and it is our hope we will not have to do this, as we are all doing our part to keep one another safe.
House Leaders
I had the pleasure of meeting with our House Leaders and Co-Leaders yesterday for
our fortnightly meeting. They are doing a brilliant job of arranging an action-packed last day of term
for all of our students. Students are allowed to wear holiday sweaters and hats at school for
the remainder of the term and the last day will be a non-uniform day where students are encouraged to wear festive, holiday outfits.
Photos
For some strange reason, the school photographers informed us that they do not take class photos
due to camera issues. So, when mentioning this to my Advisees last week, Marnie De Montford
offered to take them for us. She completed all of the class photos today and they look
brilliant. Thank you for helping us out Marnie. I’m sure you’ll agree when you see them that Marnie
has a special talent for taking brilliant photographs.
Mr. Dave Pontich
Head of School
The Times Colonist article about the Olympians training in
Shawnigan Lake- link below
Canadian paddlers hope to mine Tokyo Olympic gold from
Shawnigan Lake | Times Colonist
Mr. Josh and the Grade 4/5 class
The Grade 4/5 class has been continuing with our Wilderness Wednesdays, braving the cold and rain
to spend one day outside each week. We have been fortunate to continue our relationship with
O.U.R. Ecovillage with regular trips to their site where students have had the chance to feed the
animals, plant new trees, make apple juice and re-locate chickens to a new coop. We hope to keep up our visits in the New Year.
Our class has also been fortunate to correspond with a Grade 5 class in Bermuda. We have already
done a video call with them to learn about their island, and have now connected with them on our
blogs. Students at both schools can write blog posts, read each other’s writing and leave comments
or questions for the other class to answer. Our class recently created small handmade Christmas cards for each of their students and mailed them off this week.
It has been exciting to have our Canadian canoe and kayak athletes around campus. We see them
quite regularly heading up to the fitness centre for their daily training. Hopefully our students
recognize the hard work and dedication that goes into reaching the highest level of their sport. To
celebrate and welcome the athletes to our school, the students in Grade 4/5 have been colouring
and decorating posters for each of the athletes to be displayed around the dining hall. One of
athletes was so pleased with his poster that he donated one of his Team Canada competition jerseys to the school that will be displayed above his poster in the dining hall.
If you walk into our class area you will also take note of some large body outlines taped up around
the walls. We have been wrapping up our body systems unit in Science by creating posters of the
body parts and organs that make up the skeletal, digestive, circulatory or respiratory systems.
In Social Studies we have been exploring Canadian government and how they impact our lives. We
learned about majority rule and consensus, and students were challenged to reach consensus on
whether we should have a four-day school week that has Wednesday or Friday off. There was some
good debate and in the end the class agreed that having an extra day off on Friday would be better than Wednesday. The chance to have sleepovers for multiple nights was a big selling point!
Students are excited for Christmas holidays and many have been taking advantage of the freedom to
wear Christmas sweaters and Santa hats around school. Although Christmas is still three weeks away, the cooler weather has certainly reminded us that the holidays are fast approaching!
Mr. Josh
Grades 4 & 5 Teacher
Interact Club
Interact Club is a leadership club that is sponsored by the Rotary Club, a club started by business
leaders around the world to make their communities a better place. The Interact Club would give
students a chance to work with the local community on projects or other ideas to make the Cowichan
Valley better.
The Interact Club led a candy cane gram activity last week and collected nearly $200 that they were
able to donate to Toys Toiletries & Toques an organization that gives to the 5 food banks in the
Cowichan Valley.
Positive Discipline training for St. John's Academy staff
As part of our commitment to Positive Discipline, some colleagues have begun training to become
‘Positive Discipline (PD) for Parents’ workshop leaders. This training, lead by Joy Marchese - author
and Positive Discipline leader, is endowing St. John's Academy with a group of teachers who will educate our community about the best ways to support and guide our students, and your chil dren.
Positive Discipline is about being kind and firm, giving mutual respect, involving young people in
decisions at school and home and focusing on solutions instead of punishments. The philosophy
focuses on connecting with young people before we correct them and the approach is not a quick-fix but is a long-term investment in our learners.
Here at St. John's, your child's Advisor has been working all school year to build in Positive Discipline
routines. Ask your son, daughter, or dependent about their classroom jobs, classroom agreements,
or classroom meetings. These are all practices based on the philosophy of Positive Discipline.
In the New Year, you can expect to hear from us about opportunities for the parent community to
receive PD training. Some of you may have attended our PD seminar last year (in September 2019
with Karine Quarez) and you might be using some of these strategies at home. We would love to
hear how things are working (or not!) in your household - please email Mr. Nick or Mr. Dave if you have feedback, success stories, or need support!
Our Strategic Improvement Plan incorporates Positive Discipline and we have a milestone that the
entire school community is implementing these strategies and practices by June of 2023. We have a
lot of learning, teaching, and guiding to do before that date, but the efforts are worth it as we are investing in our most precious assets - your children.
Mr. Nick.
Director of Students
Physical and Health Education with Mr. Travis
Mount Tzouhalem hike with the Grade 8 class
The past couple of weeks, Physical and Health Education classes have been busy with a number of
hikes and some bowling trips. Students have also had the opportunity to inquire into particular sports
through research and practice and then demonstrate their understanding of those sports by planning
and leading a drill to a group of their peers.
Recently, students were asked to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of the sport of
volleyball and have been consistently showing improvement in their volleyball skills and gameplay in
class. Next week students will complete their second round of fitness testing and they will also be
asked to reflect on the SMART fitness goals they created in September. They will be making
refinements and changes to these. Students are encouraged to step up the volume and amount of
exercise time spent on these at home as we enter into the holidays.
Mr. Travis
Head of Outdoor Education and PE
Bowling with PE 9
St. John's Academy's Photos
Lauren and her grandma knit hats to see, to raise money for the
Mill Bay Food bank
Art 6 - Christmas card service project
Art 7 Christmas card service project
Art 8 Christmas card service project
Art 10 Christmas card service project
Art 11 & 12 Art Installation
Math with Ms. Julie
Class photos on the railway tracks, thank you Marnie for being our
photographer!
On Friday, Grade 10 student, Marnie, took class photos on the railway tracks behind our school. Final
class photos will be ready after winter break. marnie_just.photos Instagram handle.
Mr. Josh's super cool drone shots of our campus!
Upcoming important dates
Thursday, December 10 - Grades 4-6 skating from 9:30-10:30 am, must bring their own helmet
Friday, December 11 - Last day of classes before winter break
Monday, December 14 - Friday, January 1 - Winter vacation
Noon December 24 - January 1 - Administration Office closed
Monday, January 4 - Classes resume
Next week's menu
Monday
Juice/ Chocolate milk/ Fruit cup/ Bacon/ Eggs/ Waffles/ Tatter tots
Tuesday
Turkey soup/ Hot dogs and veggie dogs/ Smokies and Bratwurst)/ Veggie chili/ Salad s
Wednesday
Minestrone soup/ Spaghetti with meat sauce or veggie sauce/ Steamed broccoli/ Chicken strips/
Caesar salad
Thursday
Roasted red pepper and tomato soup/ Grilled cheese/ Waffle fries/ Green salad and macaroni salad
Friday
Seasoned chicken breasts/ Stuffing/ Mashed potatoes/ Peas and carrots/ Gravy/ Cranberries/
Dessert bars
Notices
School fleeces will arrive by mid-December, apologizes for the delay.
Contact Us
St. John's Academy Shawnigan Lake
2371 Shawnigan Lake Road
Shawnigan Lake, BC, V0R 2W5
250-220-4888
Visit us on the web at shawniganlake.stjohnsacademy.ca
School Video: St. John's Academy