November 2024 Newsletter

Principal Message

Just a reminder to parents that Progress Report Cards and Kindergarten Communication of Learning will be coming home on November 18. This snapshot will help parents understand their child's early progress so far this year, with a more fulsome report card coming in February to capture the learning from Term 1. Your child's homeroom teacher will also be in touch with you to set up a time for an in-person student-led conference during the week of November 25-29. This Student-led conference is an opportunity for our Grades 1-8 students to show off the great things they are doing in their classrooms this fall, in addition to self-reflecting on goals for the year. If you would like to discuss any concerns with your child's classroom teacher, please connect at a time outside of the Student-led conference. For Kindergarten, parents will be invited into the classroom for 20 minutes in late November or early December so that parents can experience what a day in the life of our youngest students looks like. We look forward to celebrating our learning with you!

Have a Notable November!

Mr. G. Donaldson

Principal

John T. Tuck P.S.

Family Movie Night - November 7

John T Tuck PS Parent Council is excited to share that we have organized a movie night for our Tuck Community on Thursday, November 7 in our school Gym. We will be showing the recent hit Inside Out 2. Please come at 6:00pm, with a blanket and a pillow to get comfy and watch the movie with us. You are welcome to wear your PJs if you wish too! We will start the movie right at 6:00pm. A small bag of popcorn will be available at no charge, courtesy of the school council, on a first come first serve basis. All students who attend the movie MUST come and watch with his/her own parent(s) for supervision. If a student comes without his/her parent(s), they will not be admitted to the school movie night. We respectfully ask that if families decide to come, that they make every effort to stay in the gym during the whole showing so that they do not disrupt those watching the movie. We also ask that parents ensure that their own children are not being disruptive or loud while watching so that everyone can hear the movie. The running time of Inside Out 2 is 96 minutes, so we expect the movie to be done around 7:30pm. For more information on the movie, please click here. We look forward to a great community event together.

JTT Spiritwear

We are pleased to present an offer to purchase School Spiritwear for this school year. The purchase of these items is directly through Pegasus and must be purchased online at https://teamandspiritwear.com/JOHNTTUCKSPIRIT/shop/home. Please ensure you are using the sizing charts provided on the online store to ensure you are choosing the right size for your child, as exchanges are not available. We are offering a hoodie, T-shirt, and shorts in Youth or Adult Sizes. We also have a Grad Hoodie Available for purchase for only Grade 8 students. Grade 8 Students will have their signatures on the back of the hoodie. There is a hard deadline of Monday, November 4th to place your orders. No late orders will be accepted, as it would delay production of orders that are on time. All orders will be shipped to the school. We look forward to seeing our students decked out in new JTT Gear!

Festivals of Light

Around the world over the next couple of months, people celebrate various festivals and celebrations of light. This includes Diwali this week, Hanukkah from December 25-January 2, Christmas Day on December 25, Orthodox Christmas Day on January 7 and Kwanzaa on December 26-January 1 to name a few. Here in the office, we would like to celebrate with you and add some decorations displaying a variety of cultures representative of our school and society. While we already have many decorations for Christmas, if anyone has any other decorations for a festival of light that they no longer use at home and wish to donate to us, we would be pleased to display them in the office and/or in our classrooms - please send them in with a little explanation of their significance to share with us. Thank you!

Costume Parade - October 31

This Halloween season, we plan to continue our tradition of having a Costume Parade for all of our students from Kindergarten to Grade 8 who choose to wear their costume to school on Thursday, October 31. Students can come to school dressed in their costumes for the first two periods of the day, or can wear Orange and Black. It is expected that students in costume have a change of clothes so that they are out of their costumes by the end of first nutrition break. As a rule, students should not be wearing any masks during the morning, except for during the parade itself. In addition, please think carefully about the props that you send with costumes to ensure that nothing gets damaged, or nothing is too scary for our younger children, could be used as a weapon, or is insensitive to ethnic, religious, racial or gender identity groups. If you do not celebrate Halloween and do not wish to have your child participate in the Halloween parade, please let your child's teacher know in advance so that we can organize an alternate activity. Parents are welcome to watch the parade from our Gymnasium. We will have benches and chairs set up in the middle of the large gym and the parade will go around the outside of the gym. We will have Door #15 and Door #10 open for parents to access the gymnasium, rather than come through the school hallways. We plan on starting the parade at 9:30am, just after announcements. We look forward to some spooktacular fun on the 31st!

It’s Scholastic Book Fair time! Mark your calendars!

John T. Tuck is thrilled to be hosting a Scholastic Book Fair Monday November 25- Friday November 29. This is an event that students and teachers alike look forward to every year. Money raised from the book fair will continue to support new and ongoing school initiatives including purchasing new books to enhance our collection in the Learning Commons. Monday November 25 and Tuesday November 26 will be wish list days where students will tour the book fair and create wish lists to bring home and share with parents. Wednesday November 27 and Thursday November 28 will be purchase days where students can bring money to school to make purchases at the book fair with their class during their designated class time. Parents can shop at the book fair too! In addition to being open to students during the school day, the book fair will also be open from 4:00 to 7:00 pm on Thursday November 28 and from 9:00-11:00 am on Friday November 29 during Student Led Conferences. Use this link to look at book trailers for books that will be featured at the fair.

Book Fair Volunteers

This event relies on the help of many parent volunteers to be successful. Parents help students with generating wish lists, shopping and making purchases. We also require help with set up on November 22 and with clean up on November 29. The volunteer sign up sheet will be coming shortly. Stay tuned. If you have any questions, please contact Ms Blanche Mills at millsb@hdsb.ca or in the Learning Commons (Tuesday, Thursday, Friday).

Parent Council

Parent Council is looking forward to meeting again on Monday November 4th at 7pm in the school library. All parents interested in attending are encouraged to join us in person. We will be discussing fundraising options for the year, review the council budget and share about what is happening at our school.

Parent Drivers and Interschool Athletics

As a reminder, we do rely on parent drivers for interschool events in the intermediate and junior grades after school (e.g., Volleyball, Basketball, Badminton, etc). For these events, we require parent drivers to fill out a driver form and have a police check on file. As these opportunities often come up last minute, it would be a great idea for all parents to have a police check on file in case you might help. If you have one on file, please ensure you fill out the offence declaration every year, otherwise you will need a new police check with a Vulnerable Sector Search. You can also apply for a police check here.

Grade 4 & 5 Intramural Soccer

Our grade 4 and 5 intramural soccer league is up and running. WIth the interest of over 70 students this year, we had to expand the number of teams competing in the league. What a great turn out! The league runs every Monday and Tuesday at first break. Looking forward to a fun and exciting few weeks.

Grade 3 & Grade 4 Choir Club

Ms. Grigaitis and Mrs. Medeiros are excited to start-up our new Gr. 3/4 Choir Club. Practices will be held on Tuesday & Thursday 11:00-11:20am in the library beginning October 24th and running until the end of December. We are preparing a song for our school's Remembrance Day Assembly and will also begin working on music for our Winter Concert. Ms. G encourages all Grade 3/4 students who enjoy singing, to come on out and share your gift of music with our JTT community!

Calling all 3 Year Olds

Calling all three-year olds to the Halton District School Board! In October and November, the HDSB is hosting Kindergarten Open Houses in Acton, Georgetown, Milton, Burlington and Oakville for families to help make this first school experience a positive one. Learn more: https://bit.ly/3RjMNDI

Grade 8 to 9 Transition

Discover the exciting opportunities available for incoming high school students! Throughout November, the HDSB will host High School Information Nights to share insights into academic courses, extracurricular activities and pathways to post-secondary education. Join us to explore what each school offers and how we support student success during this key transition. Learn more: https://bit.ly/4hhqjxu

Outdoor Education in Grade 6

Our Grade 6 cohort is excited to share that they are continuing its Outdoor education theme this Fall by participating in the "Burlington Green Cleanup Green Up". We spent a lovely afternoon removing garbage from Sioux Lookout. We will be participating in the Ontario Parks Discovery Program: "Community Science & Biodiversity" with two Virtual Visits and outdoor activities to help learn about Biodiversity in our community. The "Natures Near" program has started this year and our students will be participating in their program titled: Lichen It! We look forward to getting outside and getting our learning in touch with the outdoors.

EQAO Results

Students currently in Grades 4 and 7 were sent their individual results on last year's EQAO assessment. This assessment is a snapshot of learning for our students across all years in Primary and Junior. Our results in Grade 3 are: Reading, 91, Writing, 91, Mathematics, 88 and Grade 6: Reading, 97, Writing, 94, Mathematics, 62. These scores represent the percentage of students who achieved at or above the provincial standard. All of our results are higher than the HDSB average, and Provincial averages. For more information, you can visit eqao.com. We are very proud of the hard work of our students and staff to help students meet curriculum expectations in all grades. This year's assessment for Grade 3 and 6 will be in June.

Inclement Weather

That time of year is upon us again. Please take the time to familiarize yourself with the HDSB’s Inclement Weather Policy. The policy can be found on www.hdsb.ca by clicking on the Parent Information tab. Please ensure your child is always dressed appropriately to go outside. The threshold to stay inside during cold weather is -20C, with wind chill.

Photo Retake Day

Just a reminder that Photo retake day is Wednesday, November 20th starting at 9:30am. If you missed our first Photo Day, or were not happy with the pictures, we will be having retakes in the morning.

Parent Support with Technology

Parents, you can help us by supporting and modelling appropriate use of technology in order to encourage your child to focus on academics in school during the school day. Parents are requested to:

1. Refrain from texting your children throughout the day, and call the office for emergency messages to be relayed. If your child texts you during class time, please respond with “please go to the office, talk to an adult there and use the office phones.” Trust us. When you text your child during class time and or accept texts from them, you are implicitly teaching them that they do not have to pay attention in class, or use the adults in the building to help them problem solve.

2. Buy a calculator for your child to use in Math class.

3. Make after school arrangements with your children in advance.

4. Remind your children of the appropriate uses of technology and social media, while reviewing and monitoring their online activity outside of school hours.

5. Encourage your child to keep his/her personal device locked/secure when at school and to not share their combinations or passwords with anyone else.

6. Counsel their children that devices brought to school are their responsibility. If items are lost, broken, or stolen, the school will do everything it can to help find it and/or solve the problem, but in the end, the replacement cost rests with the student who owns it.

Days of Significance this Month

Here are the days of significance listed in our HDSB calendar this month. We encourage families to share your traditions and celebrations with your child's classroom teacher, fostering a rich tapestry of learning, celebration and understanding.

Oct 31 - Nov 1 - Diwali

1 - All Saints Day

1 - Bandi Chhor Divas

1 - Beginning of Albanian Heritage Month

1 - Beginning of Hindu Heritage Month

1 - Beginning of Lebanese Heritage Month

1 - Samhain

2 - Birth of Bahá’u’lláh

2 - Birth of the Bá’b

2 - Crowning of Emperor Haile Selassie

3 - 9 - Treaties Recognition Week

6 - Gyana Panchami