The Last Full Day

Today was the last full day of our school year. It was filled with excitement, but also a little bit of sadness.

We often celebrate the end of the school year, as in a verse from the poem School’s Out by William Henry Davies:

Girls scream,
Boys shout;
Dogs bark,
School’s out.

I get the sentiment of the poem. I too am looking forward to the break. However, I think some children will miss the routines and their friends over the summer. Some children were a bit sad today, and they did not really know why. Sometimes the role of the Principal is to just be aware of how kids are feeling, and help them by saying hi and checking in throughout the day.

Tomorrow we are having our final assembly of the school year. Grade 7 students have prepared two slide shows for the event, and we will be saying goodbye to staff and students who will be leaving us for other schools next year.

If your family is leaving us at the end of the school year, we thank you for being a part of the Cleveland community, and wish you all the best wherever you may go.

I hope to see all the students one more time tomorrow before their summer vacation starts. See you here.

Take care.

Mural Update

I have mentioned the mural project for the inner courtyard in previous posts, and I figured that it is time for an update.

A quick recap of what we have done so far.

Teachers focused lessons on colours and different elements of a picture (composition, shapes, etc.) and taught them to each class. Different grade groups had different focus for their lessons. The art work from each class became the inspiration for their part of the mural.

Thanks to Val Batyi (kindergarten teacher) and Mary Shaughnessy (artist and parent), students all got the chance to contribute to each mural by painting a part of their class panel.

The results to date are outstanding. Thanks to Dave from maintenance (with help from Glen), the panels started going up last week.

It won’t be completed before the end of the school year. Too bad.

We will have to do some sort of celebration for the completed mural in the new school year.

In September, make sure you visit our courtyard to see these murals. You can also see the mural from the library and some of the upstairs classrooms.

Art lives at Cleveland. Well done.

Take care.

Getting Ready To Say Goodbye

Tomorrow is our Farewell Assembly for our grade 7’s. The class of 2012 are ready to spread their wings and go off to High School. We wish them luck.

Every year at this time I work on my farewell address to the grade 7 class.

I sometimes quote Dr. Seuss – “Don’t’ cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” I can’t use that this year, as my blogger on the Cleveland Student blog used it for their last post.

I have quoted Emerson – “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.โ€

And I have quoted Thoreau – “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.”

This year, we have 75 students who are leaving us, and this means the audience would probably appreciate a shorter speech from the Principal. I can do that, but I think I will use my blog to say something to those grade 7 students who read this.

Dear Class of 2012,

Thank you for all of your wonderful contributions to life at Cleveland School. As this was my first year at Cleveland, you will always have a special place in my heart, being my first grade 7 class here.

As one gets older, time seems to move at a different rate than when I was in grade 7. This year flew by, but I am not sure it always felt that way to you. Now I have to get ready to say goodbye, and if I shed a few tears, try not to give me too hard of a time.

September saw me working on memorizing your names and getting to know each and every one of you. I mixed up names for the first part of the year, but after a while, I got the names correct (except I still sometimes call Alisha Ally – sorry). September also saw basketball season, and many of you took part. I enjoyed every game I was able to watch, although it was hard not jumping in and help coach.

By the end of September, you became used to me visiting your classes and asking about what you were learning. I appreciate that you were comfortable asking for help with math and other work. I was most proud of the day when I was correcting some of your spelling in French. ๐Ÿ™‚

The playground was always active. Mrs. Orr and myself were fans of older students going to play on the primary side, and many of you took advantage of this. It was great seeing you role model for younger students, and seeing the smiles on your faces helped make my job more enjoyable.

There were some behaviour challenges along the way this year, as well as some mistakes made. Those stories won’t be shared here. For those of you who made mistakes or made school challenging at times, I appreciate that you tried your best to not repeat the mistakes, or worked to make amends and help people regain trust.

I was introduced to the grade 7 craft fair, something I have never seen. You all proved to be very crafty (I know – bad pun) and created great Christmas crafts for people to buy. Many of you sold out very quickly. Well done.

This year you met Jesse Miller of Mediated Reality. I hope you remember his lessons. You live in a world of social media and texting. Please think before your text, respect each others privacy, and be good online citizens.

The year continued to fly by. Many activities happened throughout the year that kept you busy. Volleyball, band concerts, string concerts, painting chairs for a fundraiser, snow tubing, a spelling bee, tech committees, year book committee, math challenges, concours d’art oratoire, student council, pizza lunches, lunch monitoring, assemblies, gymnastics, visiting Handsworth, Jump Rope for Heart, Fun Day, Bike Week. I forgot to mention all the math, language arts, science, social studies, music, art, drama, health and career, etc.

Many of you were busy with activities outside of school. Some of you shared your successes with me, and in some cases, I heard about how good you were from your parents. It is always a pleasure to hear about your accomplishments outside of school, as well as witness all your good work in school.

The year is drawing to a close, and I think I have gotten to know most of you fairly well. I believe I know more than just your names, and was happy to play a minor role in helping you be successful in school.

This week marks the end of your elementary years. You are all growing up. I will have more to say tomorrow during the Farewell Assembly, but I will leave you one more quote:

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” ~ Maya Angelou

You made me proud to say I was your Principal. Thanks

Take care.

 

 

Recognition

Today we had an assembly, and it took a fair bit of our afternoon to get through the agenda.

Our assembly today was to recognize all those many things that students do to make a school a better place. Students were recognized for:

  • Participation in sports teams
  • Math Contests
  • Helping in the library
  • Being kind and getting a leaf on our Giving Tree
  • Helping in the computer lab
  • Being members of our Safety Patrol Team
  • Spelling
  • Concours d’art Oratoire
  • Participating in clubs (CARE, Diplomats)
  • Being a member of Student Council
  • Helping out at assemblies
  • Being in Band or Strings

It is wonderful that it took us over an hour to say thanks to the many students who have taken time to help make our school a little bit (or a lot) better.

Thanks to everyone for their role in making this a great school.

I somehow forgot to mention the lunch monitors, but I will sneak in a thanks to them at our last assembly of the year on Wednesday next week.

Take care.

 

Bike Show Today

Have your children come home talking about our assembly? If not, ask them about our trail riders assembly today.

Jeff Anderson and Steve Dickin are professional trials riders and together they make up Trialsstars. They entertained our primary students with their skills from 1:00 to 2:00, and then the intermediates at 2:00 pm.

In addition to the tricks, they also reminded our students about the need to always wear their helmet, and to not try these tricks at home. They were given some hints about safety, and I hoped they listened.

The students seemed to really like the show, and there were a couple of children trying out some of the balance tricks on the playground after school. Great work Olivia and Elliot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m certainly not trying any of these tricks.

Take care.