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February 18,

2016

View Royal K—5 ‘A CARING COMMUNITY OF LEARNERS’

Ms Elaine Dolan, Acting Principal Mrs. Laurie Hamm, Vice Principal

218 Helmcken Road Telephone: (250)479-1671

Victoria, BC V9B 1S6 Email: viewroyal@sd61.bc.ca

Dear Parents,

I am very pleased to have joined the View Royal School Community. The en-

ergy in the school is contagious . I have appreciated the welcome from staff,

students and the parents that I have met. It was very surprising to meet a mother

whose children currently attend View Royal, who recalled being a student her-

self when I was Vice Principal at Craigflower School. Oh how time flies.

What a wonderful way to end Wednesday, watching the grade 4 and 5’s at the

basketball jamboree at Shoreline yesterday. The team demonstrated great

sportsmanship and enthusiasm. Thank you to Anne Downton, Shandi Clague,

and Sherri O’Sullivan who coached and supported the basketball team.

I do look forward to meeting many families during the upcoming Student Led

conferences. They are scheduled for March 2 and 3. Stay tuned for further in-

formation.

Reminder; Friday, February 20th is a Professional Development Day. There is

no school for students, and our staff will be engaged in a variety of topics cen-

tered around student learning.

On a note of safety, please remind your children who walk to school that we

would like all of our children to cross Helmcken Road with Ms. Danyluk, our

Crossing Guard. Thank you.

Lastly, Kindergarten registration is ongoing, if you know of any families who

have children born in 2011 please remind them to come into the school and reg-

ister at their earliest convenience.

Have a lovely weekend and we will see you on Monday, February 22.

Elaine Dolan, Acting Principal

Victoria Royals

tickets available for February 20 and

March 19 games—$10 each

Email: pastpresident@vrpac.com

Check out our

website for

calendar dates and school

information:

viewroyal.sd61.bc.ca

Are You Moving Next Year?

It is that time of the year when we are getting ready to plan for the next school year and the classes we will have in the school for September. I would like to ask any parents who are planning on moving or leaving the school to please let our Office staff know as this will help us with our planning.

1000X5

1000 Books by Age FiveChildren’s

Book Recycling Project Greater Victoria

Have you found the pink bin in the FOYER BESIDE

THE RED BENCH?

We thank you for your donations of books for babies

and preschoolers. Quadra Best Babies has just joined the

program and was very excited to receive their first ship-

ment of books. Every month, they will receive more

books to give to Moms with new babes.

Feb. 24 Anti-Bullying Assembly

We will be having an assembly Wednesday February 24th at 11:20! Parents are welcome to attend.

Class Placement

Parent Input for 2016-17

We will soon be starting the process of placing students in classes for next year. Parents who feel there are special circumstances important to the placement of their child are asked to submit this input in writing to our Principal, Elaine Dolan, before April 4 . We discourage requesting certain teachers or avoiding split classes for example, and ask instead that you provide input on what you believe would be the best learning environ-ment for your child. Parent input will be consid-ered, but we cannot guarantee your request will be met. Also, parent placement requests are typi-cally not able to be considered after the above deadline.

Staff put a great deal of time and thought into each child’s placement. We meet in teams to do this, with well laid out information on each child. We ensure they have some classmates who they will work well with (not necessarily best friends) and use a wide variety of criteria to build hetero-geneous and diverse classes that balance and stimulate good learning. These criteria include but are not limited to:

Social/behavioural needs of the child

Academic development of the child

Physical size

Maturity level

Gender balance in the class

Parent input

Class size limits

Has the student had the teacher before?

Number of special needs students in the class

While teacher assignments for next year are ten-tatively developed by the month of May, they are still uncertain at this time of year due to changing enrolment. Therefore teacher assignments will likely not be finalized until September.

Basketball

Grade 4 and 5 Basketball

We have just over thirty five keen, excited, talented Grade 4

and 5 basketball players. These boys and girls practice on

Tuesdays and Thursdays at lunch time. They are working on a

variety of skills and enjoy participating in scrimmages every

week. On Wednesday, February 17th these students will test

their skills against other elementary schools at the annual bas-

ketball jamboree being held at Shoreline Middle School from

3:30-5:00. Come out to support these players!

Important Dates

February 19 Professional development Day

February 24 Pink Shirt Day Assembly (11:20)

March 7 Ukulele Club performance—Vic High

March 2-3 Student Led Conferences

March 11 Report Cards Home

March 14 Spring Break begins

March 29 Back to school

Our New Playground!

The design for our new playground is underway! Students filled out

a survey about what they wanted the playground to look and feel

like. Here are their top 5 picks!

1.Climbing Net

2.Wobbly Bridge

3.Disc Swing

4.Balance Beams

5.Sandbox and Log Walk

The playground will incorporate a lot of natural elements and land-

scaping to make the lower playground an inviting and welcoming

place to learn and play. Conceptual designs will be posted on the

front bulletin board within the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned!

Scholastic Book Fair

The Spring Scholastic Book Fair is just around the corner

and we are excited to see you there! Did you know that

for every $10 purchased at the fair, $6 in book profit will

be returned to our school and classroom libraries? The

book fair will take place during Student Led Conferences

on Wednesday, March 2 from 1:00-6:00 and Thursday

March 3 from 1:00 –4:00. Look for more information in

the Book Highlight Flyer that will come home during the

week of the fair.