Dear Families,

Thank you to everyone who attended the Parent Information Evening online sessions on Tuesday evening.  Teachers were very pleased with the turnout and families seemed happy with the opportunity to meet their child’s teachers in person, hear about the plans for the year and ask questions.  We are hoping that we will be able to invite parents onto campus in person soon.  In the meantime, feel free to email your child’s teacher(s) with any questions about the learning at school, and set up a Google Meet if required. We believe that working in partnership is the best way to achieve success and improve each child’s achievement, as well as maintain their health and wellness.  Open communication between home and school will make a positive difference.

Students are settling well into the routines of being back on campus.  We are enforcing our social bubbles and reminding students to keep their masks on and maintain social distancing.  It’s challenging for them, and can be frustrating not to be able to interact and play in close proximity with their friends.  However, the students have been resilient and teachers have been creative in finding ways for students to interact and learn together safely.  We are making the best use of our spaces and creating small break out learning spaces where we can. Each grade has their own lunch and play areas and each child takes responsibility for their own belongings and learning materials. Our goal is to maintain a safe and healthy community and continue to enjoy our face to face time.  Thank you all for your support in reaching this goal and for ensuring your child understands the importance of our health and safety protocols.

Teachers have been working hard to assess students in order to determine how to best support learning over the course of the year.  Many unique and individual skills have developed over the course of Covid, including self management skills, research skills and some communication skills. Other areas need more time to develop, especially social skills as students work, play and learn in larger groups than when online at home. Using our creative and critical thinking skills and communicating our learning effectively are skills that we continue to develop daily. These important Approaches to Learning are the overarching goals of learning throughout all grades at ABIS.

While our weather is starting to cool off slowly, it is still hot outside.  Please ensure that your child has a hat and a full water bottle (as well as plenty of healthy food for snacks and lunch) each day when arriving to school. Students will continue to eat and socialize outside during our morning breaks, and our custodians have set up lovely areas for each grade with tables alongside our buildings and chairs nestled under shady trees. We have water cooler stations for each class to refill from and teachers remind students to stay hydrated throughout the school day.  Please also remember to make sure your child is dressed appropriately for sport and active play on PE days, including comfortable sports shoes to safely run in.

As you will have seen from Mr. Robeau’s messages today, we have restructured our lunch times until the weather cools. Students will eat indoors and then, depending on grade, students will have different inside spaces to relax and socialize in during their lunch breaks.

As always, please contact us if you have any questions or clarifications about your child’s learning or school day.

I wish you all a very pleasant weekend.  Maeve