E l m a To w n s h i p P S
November Newsletter
November 3, 2014
5972 Line 72
RR#2 Atwood, ON
519 356 2241
hp://elmatownship.amdsb.ca/
Principal: Mr. G. Haber
Vice Principal: Ms. B. Alken
Courage: Facing the challenge
Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice
at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow”.
Mary Anne Radmacher
Principal’s Message
It is with mixed feelings that I share this news
with you. Effective January, 2015, Ms. Alken
will be the new Principal of Avon Public
School in Stratford. While I am sorry to see
Ms. Alken leave Elma as she has been an
outstanding Vice Principal, I know you all join
me in congratulating her on this promotion.
Ms. Alken has served Elma as Vice Principal
for close to two years now and, as a
community, we have come to know her as a
hard working advocate for children. She will
undoubtedly be missed. We wish her all the
best as she moves on to Avon!
Beginning in January, Jessica Vanderkayden
will serve as the Vice Principal at Elma. Ms.
Vanderkayden comes to us from the Waterloo
Region District School Board where she is
presently employed as a teacher. I have no
doubt she will quickly see what a great,
welcoming community this is.
Kindergarten Registration takes
place on November 21st.
Please be sure to call ahead!
Our Students’ Safety
Every school has procedures in place to ensure
that all students are safe and accounted for at all
times of the day. We take this responsibility
very seriously, and ask for your help in following
these procedures.
• Pick up and drop off is only in the office.
• If you have something to drop off for your
child, bring it to the office and the staff will
make sure that your child receives it in a
timely manner.
• At no time are parents to go to the buses to
pick up students. If you need to pick up your
child and have not sent a note, come to the
office and we will call them from the
classroom or the buses as they are loading.
• At no time during the school day are parents
to drive around the school, past the loop in
the front, in their vehicles.
• At no time are parents to stop in their
vehicles and speak to children on the
playground. This raises red flags for staff on
duty as they do not know who is stopping.
• If you have an urgent request during a
recess period to call your child, come to the
office and the staff will radio out to the
teachers on duty.
Together we will ensure the safety of all the
students in our charge.
Elmighties
Cross Country
The Elmighties will once again be promoting
Healthy Eating and Physical Activity in Elma
students and staff. This years' Elmighties are:
Stephanie, Emily, Brianna, Brianna, Hilary,
Cameron, Sage, Eric, Mitchel, Keegan, Jack,
and James.
Elma’s cross country team once again had
an incredibly large number of participants
with almost 90 students! We try to include
runners of all ages and abilities and hope to
foster a life-long love of running. All runners
are to be congratulated for their dedication
to attending practices for the entire 7 week
season.
Soccer
Elma’s team attended two meets. The first
The Junior Soccer Tournament was held At
meet was the Regional Meet and involved
Elma on October 15th. Elma’s team played
the 7 schools in the north region. The secthree qualifying games against Maitland River,
North Woods and Listowel Eastdale with a per- ond meet was at Falls Reserve Conservation Area. This District meet involved all the
fect record. They were advanced to the final
schools in the AMDSB. Runners have to
championship game against Wallace Public
earn their way to the District meet and we
School and after being tied 2-2 for some time,
Elma came back to win the title. Elma’s players are proud to say we were able to take 66
worked well together by playing their positions, runners! Competition is stiff at this meet and
passing the ball and protecting their feisty goal- it is an incredible achievement to earn a
medal.
keepers, Cole and Brent . Congratulations to
Elma’s 2014 junior mixed soccer team! Team
While all results are worth recognizing,
Members include: Kyra, Brooke, TD, Makenzie, Erica, Sadie Tina, Megan, Taytt, Cole, Joel, space limits us to only mentioning the top
few. Full results can be found on lists postNathan, Alex, Boyd, Darren, Brock, Dakota,
ed in the hallways.
Brent ,Nicholas, Bracken.
A special thank you to Elma Minor Soccer volunteers Mike McCourt and Bill Patterson for lining the fields for the tournament. Referees for
the day were former Elma students Ben Rothwell, Blake Buchanan, and Joel Shaw. It was
great to see these boys back at Elma. They did
a fantastic job keeping the games in check as
well as communicating with players and coaches. Finally, thank you to the flaggers (Robbie
and Nico , Scott , Olivia , Peter , Salome ,
Vanessa , and Matayia )
The following runners earned medals:
Regional Meet
AMDSB Meet
1st
Aidan, Jack
Stephanie
Jack
2nd
Logan, Emily
3rd
Austin, Rachelle Emily
Tina, Todd
6th
Emily
7th
Aidan, Kyra
8th
Todd
9th
Tyler, Damian
10th
Rachelle
Honourable mention to Stephanie who just
missed winning a medal at the District meet
with an 11th place finish.
Before and After School Survey
Robotics!
You will find an information letter and survey
attached to this month’s email. Please take a
moment to fill this out, it will only take a few
minutes at most, and will guide the programs
and services that are offered to all the families
in the AMDSB.
The electronic survey can be found at
www.yourschools.ca, about half way down
the page on the right hand side, under
"Other Important Sites".
Elma's Lego Robotics Team, "Avon Maitland
Innovators" have been busy preparing for a
qualifier tournament on November 22, 2014 in
Waterloo. The team is working hard to build
and program robots that will complete challenges created by First Lego League. On October 1st, the students met with our boards
director Mr. Doherty at Elma and asked him
some great questions to help them in creating
their research project. Our project mission this
season is to find a better or more innovative
way to help someone learn. We have been
challenged to design an innovative solution
that adds value to society by improving something that already exist, using something that
exists in a new way, or inventing something
totally new. The following students will be the
first team to represent Avon Maitland District
School Board and Elma Township Public
School at the Elementary level in a First Lego
Robotics competition. Our long term goal is to
get more schools in our board involved and
ideally have our students work collaboratively
with other students not only in our board, but
in other boards across our Province as well:
Tyler, Wesley, Alyssa, Michael, Wilson,
Chaise, Nicholas, Nick, Emily, and Wyatt .
Peer Pals
Once again Elma students
are participating in training
to be part of the PEER
Pals program. The program provides students
with the skills to encourage
positive social interactions
in our school community.
The students will have the opportunity to enhance leadership, organizational and problem
solving skills through planning recess activities
for the primary students during recess twice a
week.
Thanks to the following students for taking the
initiative to become part of the program.
Taytt, Nathan, Roma, Wyatt, Bracken, Cole,
Emily, Henry, Alex, Boyd, Zoey, Jordan, Emily
Elma TPS will be hosting a Scholastic Book
Fair from November 5-12 in the library. The
Fair will remain open during teacher/parent
interview times as well, November 6th and 7th.
Please drop by to support the purchase of new
resources for our library.
Thank you!
Many thanks to the Sunday School group at
Trowbridge United Church for their generous
gift of backpacks and school supplies for our
hard working families. Your generosity is
greatly appreciated by our school community.
If your child is in need of a new backpack,
please contact the office as there are two un-
Choose to protect you
and your
family from the flu
Influenza (or the flu) is a respiratory illness that can
spread quickly from person to
person – especially children.
The flu shot is free and is recommended for everyone over
six months of age. Starting in
late October, the flu shot is
available at community flu
shot clinics, your family doctor’s office and at select pharmacies (for people over 5
years and older).
For more information about
the flu shot and a schedule of
clinics:
Call Health Line at 519271-7600 ext267 or
toll-free at 1-877-2717348 ext 267
Visit www.pdhu.on.ca
Follow us on Twitter
@pdhealthun
Save the Date!
Come cheer on the Listowel Junior B
Cyclones Hockey Club
Free admission to the game for all
ELMA students.
When: Friday November 14th
Where: Listowel Arena
Game Time: 730 pm