Dear QQS Parents and Caregivers,

 The 2014-15 school year has begun and Qwam Qwum Stuwixwulh Community School staff has exciting plans and high expectations for your child’s learning.  I know that you also have many hopes and dreams for your child’s success in school and beyond.

 To make sure those hopes and dreams are realized, I want to ask for your commitment to making sure your child attends school every day possible this year. The evidence is clear: children with good attendance are more likely to be successful in school.  High attendance rates are linked to high student achievement.  This is true for every grade – elementary, middle, and high school students.

 A recent review of student attendance data by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction shows that regular school attendance from Kindergarten on is essential to successful learning:

Every day counts. Missing school even 10% of the time has a significant negative impact on reading and math achievement as children progress through school.

Students with good attendance performed better in math and reading. Children who had good attendance in Kindergarten through Grade 2 were more than twice as likely to score proficient on state math tests by the time they reached Grade 8 as their peers who missed more school. In reading, there were similar results.  

Good attendance starts early. Research has shown that the attendance habits established Kindergarten through Grade 2 have lasting effects on students throughout their education: children with high attendance in the early grades continue to have good attendance; and students with low attendance in the early grades are more likely to have low attendance—and lower academic performance—throughout their elementary and middle school years.

As your child’s most influential teacher, I am asking for your support in helping your child get to school on time at 8:40 a.m. every day this year. Your child needs to be in school and engaged in learning to reach his or her full potential. Yet, we realize that every family faces challenges. Please let me or your child’s teacher know if your family needs help dealing with a challenge to your child’s good school attendance. My contact information is below. We will do our best to help you and your family ensure that your child’s school attendance stays on track.  

Thank you for all you do to support your child’s school success and well-being, as well as our school.  I look forward to working with you this year and to having your child learn and grow at Qwam Qwum Stuwixwulh Community School!

 Best wishes for a safe, respectful, responsible and successful school year.

 Educationally Yours, Roxanne Harris, Principal, Qwam Qwum Stuwixwulh Community School

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Welcome back Grade 6 and 7’s!

My name is Tina Walker and I am the new Grade 6 & 7 teacher in the portable. I am really happy to be teaching at QQS for Snuneymuxw First Nation. For the past 6 years I taught Grade 5-7 at Penelakut Island Elementary School. I live in Nanaimo with my husband Les; we love to spend time in the outdoors and in our free time we enjoy kayaking, hiking, and camping.

It has been a good start to the school year! We began the year with building a positive and safe learning space using icebreakers games and getting to know each other activities, including going over expectations and school rules. Everyday we focus on a virtue such as: respect, kindness, generosity, and cooperation. The students worked really hard on making a personal poster in the style of the front page of a newspaper. The poster activity is used to encourage students to get to know one another, to celebrate what makes each person unique, and to teach organizational, and reporting skills.

For Language Arts the Reading Groups are working hard focusing on comprehension and writing activities to demonstrate learning using the Reading Mastery and Read to Achieve program textbooks. Read to Achieve is a content-area text alternating between science and social studies topics. They also have regular timed reading and retell practice with 6 Minute Solution and DIBELS programs with Peter. Since it is the 35th anniversary of the Terry Fox Run, the students have been learning about Terry Fox and the Marathon of Hope. The students have been training for the school run and learning about all the positive character traits that make him a Canadian Hero. For Math we use the Saxon math program and are currently doing a review of number sense, adding & subtracting, and multiplying & dividing whole numbers & money, and fact families; then we will do multi-digit multiplication and long division, and order of operations. For Social Studies we are doing a unit on First Nations studies, we also have Gary Smith teaching Language & Culture. For Physical Education we have been going to Princess Royal Park Field to play soccer and Frisbee golf. We are looking forward to the “Meet a Mariner” program where athletes from VIU will be leading some coaching sessions on soccer, basketball, and volleyball with the students. The students also have Music class once a week as well as several field trips; look in the QQS calendar for upcoming events.

To encourage students to dream about going to University after high school, recently the students went on a tour of VIU lead by Sport Health and Physical Education Professor Les Malbon. The tour was also organized to show the class that VIU supports aboriginal students. The class went to the gym to play basketball, the library to see the totem pole, to the First Nations Studies Building, Kwulasulwut Garden, and the Gathering Place to see the totems poles and visit with the Elders. It is going to be a great year! Please come down to the portable to visit us at the portable or call 250-754-1300.

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Who was Terry Fox?

Terry Fox was a very athletic person. He liked Basketball and other sports. Terry Fox discovered he had bone cancer at the age of 18 so the doctors amputated his leg above his knee. Then Terry wanted to raise money from each person in Canada; at the time Canada had 24 million people. Terry planned to run across Canada at 42 km a day. Then Terry Fox had to go home half way through the Marathon of Hope because his cancer spread to his lungs.

By: Talela Manson