This past month and half leading into late-October has been full, with staff reviewing our school learning plan and tweaked it in small ways to move us closer to attaining literacy, numeracy goals and a greater sense of belonging for all students, and to create a graph showing progress to be displayed publicly. 

One of the goals in numeracy is to have students be more skilled at "Fast Facts":  We are having “FAST FACT MASTER” buttons made, and will award these to students who master their facts.  We are also considering making “Published Author” buttons as well.  These are still in the conceptual stage.

Student Activities this Fall

• Students attended a cross-country run-in Creston.  A lovely, relatively easy run in the park. We had almost three full classes attend.
• Classes from grade 2 and up attended the Lakeside Cross-country Run on October 18th.
• The grade 3-4 class has begun their work in the local Old Growth Forest.
• Students pitched in as kitchen helpers to serve breakfast.

Support for Learners

• Our roving Educational Assistant for Salmo has really pitched in and made a positive difference for students, and all our staff thank you!
• The Columbia Basin Alliance for Literacy team is poised to begin supporting students with reading development and practice.
• We held an orientation for Volunteers and three quality volunteers have planned to join us and be part of the learning fabric at Salmo Elementary.
• The Salmo Secondary School Leadership class is beginning a partnership with our school by coming twice a week to be a part of classes but mostly to help provide activities for students at noon recess.  We see many potential benefits of this partnership.

Celebration of Learning Assembly

We held a celebration of Learning Assembly on October 1st. All classes shared what they have been working on and displayed some of their work.  At this assembly students taped the Principal to the wall as part of the Terry Fox success celebration! 

Our school raised nine times the maximum amount they had raised each year for the last ten years. Although the Principal did not stay stuck when the chair was removed from below him (me), good fun was had by all and many parents attended to join in the fun.

Parent Gather BBQ A Success, Principal Making Progress

The PAC held a Parent Gathering Barbecue at the school in the last week of September and attendance records were shattered.  We had an excellent turn out of staff and it was a lovely evening. 

Principal Giles (again, me) is slowly catching up on September obligations and becoming a little more competent using technology to complete tasks. Fortunately, Secretary Myka is an excellent teacher and Principal has completed “emerging” and is at the bottom end of proficient. The good thing about this is the Principal has been able to spend time in classes supporting students with a focus on literacy. This has been most rewarding for me.

Finally, it is a real pleasure to be part of this school and community and we are indeed off to a good start.  

Our mantra: 

“We are not looking for perfection;  We just want to be a little better today than we were yesterday.”

Principal Rod Giles