October 8, 2025
School Growth Plan, Family Days and Outdoor Free Play Activities!
We are excited to share our updated School Growth Plan (Learning Plan) for 2025-2026 in the coming weeks! In addition to our ongoing Goal of Community Building we will be further articulating our objectives to continue improving learning outcomes in Literacy, Numeracy and Indigenous Education.
Family Days are at the core of our Community Building efforts and provide opportunity for students to come together across grades and promote connectivity, belonging and specifically this year, help develop leadership skills in our older students. Our entire school population is split into 10 Families. Each Family has a different name and colour. This years theme is BC Flora and our families are named: Rouge Broadleaf Maple; Bleu Western Hemlock; Orange Huckleberry Bush; Green Salmon Berry Bush; Yellow Bracken Fern; Blue Salal Berry Bush; Vert Sword Fern; Orange Oregon Grape; Jaune Douglas Fir; and Western Red Cedar. Students organize into their families in individual classrooms and participate in learning and team building activities once a month.
Today was our first Family Day and our Grade 5 Leadership club was excited to put their skills to work! Part of their task on Family Days is to collect our youngest students – Kindergarten and Grade 1 – and bring them to their Family Team Meeting location. The collection of our younger students is intended to help them get to know our Grade 5 leaders and feel more comfortable within the larger group. They did a fantastic job today!
Please watch for upcoming Family Days in our Calendar, ask your child which family they are in and what their colour is! We ask that students try and wear their family colours on each family day. Our Final family Day of the year will be Sports Day in June where students will participate in all the games and activities within their Family.
In addition to our Family Days we will continue to offer School Clubs to help connect students in a social setting– so far we have … Chess, Knitting and Crochet, Performing Arts, Leadership, Running and our unstructured play opportunities with Hockey, Basketball and Soccer.
AND … New this year we want to add more unstructured free play outside for our students to help promote creativity, risk taking, resiliency, engagement and FUN! So to that end we are putting together some bins of activities and we need your help!
For starters we are hoping to create some “BUILDER BINS” and our ideas for these bins so far are:
- Large Blocks and Tree Branch Rounds – we have started by simply cutting up 2 X 4s into various lengths. We have a couple of Bins worth but we need more!
- PVC Pipes and Connections – Any plumbers out there? … students will build structures and create pathways for marbles or whatever else they can dream up!
- Sand and Dirt toys – We have a section on our playground where digging is VERY POPULAR. We want to add Tonka Trucks, buckets, trowels etc.
We are asking for families to consider donating any of these items you may have to add to our bins!
Specifically we are looking for:
- Clean, untreated lumber – preferably already cut up into blocks that could fit into a standard Rubbermaid bin, wooden dowlings, branch rounds (thick branches or logs cut into rounds) etc.
- Clean, unused PVC Piping with connections (elbows etc)
- Outdoor sand/dirt toys
And lastly we are eager to add even more BINS but we’re not necessarily even sure what we are looking for! Any and all ideas are welcomed. Our overall goal is to create a collection of rolling bins (these are all built and ready to go) that leadership students will bring out daily and kids can simply …. create!
If you have any leftover building supplies, are handy with a saw or have other items you wish to donate please connect first with Mr Manville through email – pmanville@sd40.bc.ca – and we can arrange drop off for you. We want to ensure we will be able to use the items first and save you a trip.
Any questions please reach out to Mr Manville directly!
Thank you
P. Manville