Turner Valley School News - New Year Brings Opportunity

The ringing in of the New Year always gives us an opportunity to reflect on the year past and look ahead with optimism to the year ahead.
Our school wide goal of improving reading has guided the work. Each day students are given learning activities that are targeted at their specific needs in the area of reading. We are seeing some great improvement in many of our students. I am proud to say that our staff remains very committed to this critical area of the foundations of all learning. Details about our reading program are available from our school Education Plan that is accessible on our website
http://turnervalley.fsd38.ab.ca. Look under “Information for Parents”.
Also, it is also a great pleasure to congratulate the students who were named to the Tiger's Wall of Fame in the first half of the year. Several students have been recognized for outstanding contributions to our school culture in the areas of character, competence and community.
The final event of 2011 was our Christmas concert. I'm sure you all will agree that the evening was indeed “The Best Gift Ever”. Congratulations on a wonderful performance by our entire school. A very big thank you must go to the school staff that went the extra mile to make the event special.
We have already noticed that many students have received a variety of electronic devices for Christmas. Some of these devices will allow access to the internet. Our school now has the capability to allow students to use these devices for their studies and we welcome them for such use. We would like to caution parents that bringing cell phones and games to school has its risks. It seems that some always get “lost” when they come to school. Students have access to phones at all times if necessary so the need for a cell phone at school would only be for after school. Consequently, we have students store their phones and other devices in their school bags or lockers unless they are using them for school based activities.
Basketball is on tap for the grade sixes. We are hoping to arrange some games with our neighboring schools through the month of January and February.
In closing, we at Turner Valley School would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone in our learning community a very happy, healthy and prosperous new year.
We are hosting “One World Drum” as Artists in Residence January 30th – February 3rd. Parents are invited to join in their child's class for this very special community building activity. Please see schedule in this publication.
Education Together
Rob Bennington

Kindergarten 2012/13 Registration & Parent Information Evening
Thursday, March 8th at 7:00 pm.
If you know of a family with a prospective Kinder child, please encourage them to come to this meeting and get an early registration in place! If you have any questions, please contact Mrs. Muller or Mrs. Turbach at the office.
Vision Care
The Canadian Association of Optometrists recommends that all children in school should annually visit an optometrist for a check of eye health and vision. There is no cost to parents for these appointments as Alberta Health fully covers the costs of eye examinations for all children up to age 19. For more information, visit http://www.optometrists.ab.ca/parent-faqs#12