January 13, 2022

It’s hard to believe that this is our first week back but we are delighted to have the boys back in the halls! And our halls have been fantastically decorated with the art work of our Gr. K-5 artists for Trimester 1. The pictures above are a sample of our Gr. 3/4s interpretation of the Northern Lights. Now in our second Trimester, Mrs. Fairhead has launched the Gr. K-5 classes into Drama with some improve and theatre sports games.

WEEK AT A GLANCE

FRI. JAN. 14 – K-8 Trimester 2 Electives start

MON. JAN. 17 – Health Hunger: Noodlebox (Richmond Campus); Mucho Burrito (Currie Campus)

TUES. JAN. 18 – Townhall, Fun Lunch, Non-uniform Day

Exam Week

January 24-28

This year, our students will be writing midterm exams in the week of January 24, 2022. Cumulative exams continue to be a reality in the world of education and beyond, and we are keen to expose and prepare our students.

Please see the timetables below for both the high school and middle school midterm exams.

Please forward any questions to Brandon McClelland at bmccleland@northpoint.school.

High School Exam Schedule

Gr. 6-8 Midterm Exam Schedule 2021 – 2022

Parent Council Meeting

Tuesday, February 15th at 7:00pm

Friends of North Point Society (the not-for-profit society for Parent Council) will be holding its Annual General Meeting on Tuesday, February 15th at 7:00pm.  

Friends of North Point Society is looking for individuals to fill all roles within the Society.  The activities of the Society currently include running the Healthy Hunger program, running fundraising events, assisting the school with events, running Mabel’s Labels fundraiser, and any other requests the school might have.  The Society is currently approved for a casino that we are waiting to have booked by AGLC.

We are looking to fill the roles of any/all board members including the following: Chair/Co-chair, Treasurer, Secretary, Director at Large, and Volunteer Coordinator. Experience is not necessary.  

The duties of the Officers and Directors are as follows:

• The Chair will plan the agendas for the meetings; conduct the meetings; act as a spokesperson for the School Council; and generally supervise the School Council. The Chair will prepare Annual Reports of the School Council.
• The Co-Chair will assist the Chair with their responsibilities.
• The Secretary will keep accurate minutes and records of the meetings; take care of all correspondence and communication.
• The Treasurer will keep accurate records of all financial transactions of the School Council; present an accounting of the funds to School Council members; and prepare the accounts for auditing.
• The Volunteer Coordinator will help coordinate activities which involve parents and the school community; and will report those activities to the School Council.
• Directors at Large assist the Council with the handling of any issues that may arise such as filling quorum for meetings, advising on issues that may be presented to Council. 

Please consider becoming involved with the Parent Council. Your help is greatly needed. If you have any questions related to any role please contact Maureen Appel at appel.maureen@gmail.com.

Healthy Hunger

Lunches for the Healthy Hunger program at both campuses have been posted up until Spring Break. If you have not yet set up an account, please go to the Healthy Hunger website. 

Transportation Update

Our long-time and devoted bus driver, Sharon, has had to vacate her driver’s seat due to health issues. We want to thank Sharon for her years of faithful service and for safely transporting our students to and from school as well as on many off-campus trips. We wish Sharon a return to full health and all the best as she enters this next chapter.

Capably occupying the driver’s seat now is our new bus driver, Kevin. Kevin is a retired principal and teacher who lives in Okotoks with his wife. They have two grown sons and he enjoys golfing, skiing and biking (or pretty much anything that gets him outside and enjoying nature) in his spare time. Kevin had taken over Sharon’s Northwest bus route. Welcome aboard, Kevin.

COVID-19 Update

There have been some important COVID-19 related process and guidance changes that we would like our families to be aware of. 

New Alberta Daily Health Checklists 

The Government of Alberta recently updated the Alberta Health Daily Checklist. New isolation requirements are included for fully vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals as well as other updates. Please continue to have your child complete the checklist every day before coming to school as an important step in keeping our schools healthy and limiting transmission of COVID-19. 

Alberta Health Daily Checklist

​​Rapid Test Kits/Medical Grade Masks 

Government-provided rapid test kits/medial grade masks have arrived and they have been distributed to students and staff. The rapid test kits have been sent home with every student. Some of the teachers have opted to keep the masks in their classrooms for the students to use while at school. A reminder these items are optional. Cloth masks will continue to be acceptable.

COVID-19 Notifications 

Alberta Health Services (AHS) is no longer supporting COVID-19 and respiratory illness outbreak management in schools. AHS will not be notifying schools of positive cases, has asked schools not to report positive cases to AHS and will not be declaring alerts or outbreaks or publishing this information on the government website as they have done previously. 

North Point will be monitoring student and staff attendance as a means of identifying challenging situations where a temporary shift to at-home learning may be warranted. Families are asked to inform the school office if their child will not be attending school. 

At-Home Learning 

Based on our past experiences through this pandemic, trying to Zoom only a few students into an in-person classroom can be challenging and ineffective for everyone. Teachers will continue to provide work for boys that are at home through google docs, emails and/or work packages available for pick-up at the school.

Should a class cohort have more than 50% of the students in that class at home due to COVID-19 protocols, the teachers will provide a schedule for on-line teaching and support and will email instructions to you.  If you do not hear from your teacher about Zoom classes, it means that your son can continue working on assignments provided via the methods above.  Please feel free to send any questions you might have as our staff will do their best to respond as soon as possible regarding school support.

Should North Point School administration determine that it is warranted to halt in-person learning for a homeroom class or grade cohort due to staff and/or student absences, we will inform families promptly and proceed with at-home on-line learning for a maximum of 10 calendar days.  

As Omicron continues to spread, we continue to look at various ways to support a significant number of students that may be away, while a large portion of students remain in-person.

Chromebooks

If your son doesn’t have access to a computer at home where he can access his school account, you can contact the office and arrange to pick up your son’s Chromebook from the school.

We will only be sending Chromebook’s home if boys are confirmed to be away from school for 5 or more days.  Chromebooks will not go back and forth from school and home on a daily basis.

Please ensure the Chromebooks are used appropriately on your home network and that they are in the same quality condition when they come back to school.

Any damage, destruction or inappropriate use of the school Chromebooks may lead to consequences and/or having to replace the Chromebook.

Alberta Education Guidance

New guidance for Schools has been posted by Alberta Education. You can find the document at the link below: 

​​COVID-19 Information for K-12 Schools and School Buses  

Altruistic Thank Yous

Over the Christmas break we received several encouraging notes of appreciation for the community service and donations our school participated in. Below is a letter we received from Stephen’s Backpacks

Good Morning

Words cannot express how much we appreciate your support in 2021!

We were able to help over 6000 children in need through our backpack program and completely furnish a home for a wonderful family -a Mom and seven children!!!

Happy New Year!

Nancy McPhee
Executive Director
Stephen’s Backpacks Society

NAVIGATOR SQUAD POINTS

Athletics

On the Richmond Campus we have been taking advantage of this wonderful weather to hold physical education classes outside.  This has been a great opportunity to ensure a significant and well deserved mask break and chance to enjoy the games, activities and nature discovery with this sudden warming trend.  

Competition in athletics has been temporarily interrupted and Mr Quereshi has spent this week focusing on practice and competition based on grade grouping during noon hour lunch.  With that we are communicating with teams that are ready to play and working on putting some basketball games in place for our grade 7/8 and JV squads as early as next week.  Stay tuned.

Curling

Our North Point Curling program officially started with its inaugural practice this week.  We plan to grow the program and will continue to host practices each week. There will be direct on-ice instruction at every practice and during game play so that there is exponential development and understanding. No previous experience is necessary and we are happy to have students jump on board at any time!  SIGN UP:  https://forms.gle/zQ9ucbFycxHBX75XA