School

We have just completed the first full week of school with the Terry Fox Run on Friday afternoon. I have an interesting mix of students. It has been an interesting start with the grade 2 and 3 classes spending the first 3 days in the gym. Students don't get allocated to their new classes until the new school year starts. They go to the room and the teacher that they had last year on the first day, chat about the summer and hand out notices that need to be returned, and are dismissed about an hour later. They also come back to that teacher the next day who tells them which teacher and class they will move off to. We have the maximum number of students allowed in those classes and there was discussion as to whether we would actually get another teacher and create another class. We still didn't know on the Friday as we left school, but the decision must have been made over the weekend, and we didn't get another class.

We had held off drawing up timetables, which would only have had to be changed. Now the process could begin. The music teacher had to set up his timetable first, because he is the main provider of Non-instructional Time (NIT). Then we could try and find 3 x 30 min slots for gym bookings. The computer lab timetable is yet to be done.

I have 14 boys and 13 girls - a nice balance. We had Student Alert meetings during the week, where teachers meet with the "School Support Team" and are briefed on all the students in the class. We are given files and information on students that are in need of special assistance. I was told that I have 4 students that have been designated by the School District with a variety of designations, and that a 5th student would be designated in the next few days. I have since been told that there may be a 6th student designated in the near future. According to the North Vancouver Teacher's Association (NVTA), there is agreement with the School District that class sizes are fixed at a maximum of 22 students in a Kinder class, 24 in grade 1 - 3, and 30 in grade 4 - 7. There is also a limit of 3 students with Individual Education Plans (IEP's). Any more than 3 and there needs to be a special Consultation procees. The consultation process has to take at least 48 hours and it must be finished before September 28th. Fun! Fun! Fun!

I have already been to a Grade 4 parent information night, which was to give parents a bit of information about the transition from Primary to Intermediate in the Elementary school. The students, and the teachers, are considered separately for various things. Next week I will also be at school until at least 5 pm each night for parent interviews. I have 27 students, each of which is allocated 15 minutes. That is another 7 hours of meetings.

We certainly don't start the year gradually. It is jump in at the deep end, and away we go.