Dental screenings for Grade 8 Students

Ottawa Public Health will be conducting dental screenings for all grade 8 students next Tuesday at the school.  The public health department has provided us with the following information:

Ottawa Public Health supports children’s oral health in many ways such as screening children at school, Community Health Resource Centres and Public Health Dental Clinics. Dental screenings help identify oral health problems such as a dental abscess, infection and large visible cavities. Cavities can affect a child’s daily life both at home and at school. In fact, kids miss over 2 million days of school every year because of oral health problems. 

Cavities can affect your overall health by causing: 

• Pain and infection
• Loss of sleep
• Poor concentration
• Problems speaking and learning 
• Difficulty chewing 
• Digestive problems
• Low self-esteem 
• Bad breath

For more information about dental screenings and other dental health services call Ottawa Public Health at 613-

580-6744, e-mail DentalHealth@ottawa.ca or visit www.ottawa.ca/dental.

Ottawa police BBQ this Saturday

Join your community at the Ottawa Police Service BBQ this Saturday. Details below

Support St. Brigid's camp with a Kiwi Kraze Frozen Yogurt

Support St. Brigid's camp with a Kiwi Kraze Frozen Yogurt

St. Patrick's Blog Week of September 22nd, 2014

St. Patrick's Blog

Week of September 22nd, 2014

Meet the Staff Evening

I would like to thank, again, all of our parents and guardians who joined us for our meet the staff evening last Thursday.  It was great sharing our direction for the year with such a large crowd.  If there is any information that you require between now and our first set of interviews at the beginning of November, I would encourage you to contact the school.  Teachers do not have voice mail at St. Patrick’s, however, our office administrators would be happy to leave a message for you.

School Photo Day

Students will be called down during the day for school photos on Thursday, September 25th.  There is no need to send money ahead of time, students will receive picture proofs, and parents can make decisions about ordering later on.  

Follow this Blog by email

Thank you to the parent who suggested the “email following” gadget for this blog.  You can now enter your email on the right hand side of the blog and be informed when a new blog post has been added.  Remember to scroll down to the bottom of the blog page to access the St. Patrick’s calendar for student activities and important events.

Homebase T-shirts

Students are encouraged to purchase a homebase t-shirt this week through their homeroom teacher.  The shirts display the gospel value that is represented by each homebase, and are worn during intramurals when classes play against each other.  We also put them on for our Terry Fox run on October 9th.  It’s a great opportunity to see all of our classes represented by different colours.  The cost of the t-shirts is subsidized by the school and they only cost $5, with some gently used ones selling for $2.

This Week

September 24th: (11:00 am to 1:00 pm) Top Marks at the school for uniform exchanges

September 26th: Our opening mass will be celebrated this Friday, at 8:30am.  Please join us if you are able.

Have a great week;

Sean Kelly

St. Patrick's Blog Week of September 15th, 2014

St. Patrick's Blog

Week of September 15th, 2014

Safe Schools Situation

I would encourage parents and guardians to review my information in a previous blog regarding the safe schools situation at St. Patrick’s on September 11th.  Despite the mild concern in the community, our students and staff responded very well.

Grade 7 Math Diagnostic Testing

Our grade 7 students will all be involved in a diagnostic Math test on Wednesday of this week.  The students are told that there is absolutely no preparation or study required for the session, it is baseline test to provide information to the staff regarding the learning process of our students.  Most of the information on the test will be a review of concepts learned prior to grade 7.

Meet the Staff Evening

I would like to invite all of our parent/guardian community to join us on Thursday, September 18th for our Meet the Staff session.  Our students are welcome to accompany parents that evening as well.  We will begin the session with a presentation in the cafeteria beginning at 6:00, including introductions and some information about our school year.  This will be followed by an opportunity to meet with your student’s teachers, as well as the St. Patrick’s support staff.  Please check with your son/daughter to get a copy of their schedule, or a listing of their classroom teachers so you know who to meet!  Our session will end at 8:00 pm.

Form return / Student Fee collection

We have finalized our form and student fee collection this past week.  If you have yet to return student verification, CASL or acceptable use of technology forms, please send these in with your son/daughter asap.  We are also hoping for strong support of school initiatives through our student fee collection.  Please forward $30 with your child to their homebase teacher.  Information regarding the use of the student fee went home on the first day of school.

Have a great week;

Sean Kelly

Secure School at St. Patrick's Intermediate

We would like to inform our parent/guardian community that there was a “secure school” situation called at St. Patrick’s Intermediate at approximately 11:30 am this morning (Sept. 11th).  Ottawa Police contacted us to indicate that there was a concern in the community and we were asked to go into “secure school”  as a precaution.   Within a few minutes, a school resource officer presented himself at the school and suggested, based on additional information, that we move from a “secure school” to “shelter in place” designation.  “Shelter in place” indicates that students can move within the building, however, they remain inside the school.

At this point, staff began accompanying students to the washrooms, as well as lockers to retrieve their lunches and to the cafeteria to purchase food.  Just before 1:00 pm, Ottawa Police contacted us to indicate that there was no longer a concern in the community, and the “shelter in place” condition had ended.

I want to thank our students who were extremely patient and cooperative throughout the entire situation.  A thank you to our student services staff who assisted with releasing classrooms of students to go to the washroom and to their lockers.  We appreciate the support of our school resource officer and Ottawa Police who were very helpful throughout the process.  We will spend time this year reviewing safety measures and protocol with students, however, their reaction in this case was excellent.

Please contact me at the school if you have any concerns.

St. Patrick's Blog Week of September 8th, 2014

St. Patrick's Blog

Week of September 8th, 2014

Opening Week

We had a great first week at St. Patrick’s Intermediate.  There were a number of orientation sessions for students to ensure they quickly become comfortable in their surroundings.  Grade level assemblies gave us an opportunity to speak to students about being kind to each other, and to seek out a staff member if issues arise.  We have a strong tradition at St. Patrick’s of demonstrating care and concern for each other.  This doesn’t happen by accident - we need to continually review our approaches and make sure we are all content both in and outside the classroom.  

Boot Camp Organization

Our annual “Boot Camp” provides a separate morning for grade 7’s and 8’s to review expectations in 4 different areas.  Our staff outline information and answer questions in the areas of Respect and Responsibility, Community Resources and the use of Technology as a learning tool.  Mr. Kelly and Ms. Burgoyne spent time in the fourth session reviewing routine expectations and speaking to goal setting.  Mr. Kelly chatted with students about the learning process in school.  He used his new unicycle to demonstrate some of the steps we need to take when we are learning something new.  I challenged students to become active participants in the learning process, and to share their experiences with other students, staff and parents and guardians so these people can provide support.

School - Home Communication

There were a number of communications that came home from the school this past week.  We would appreciate you reviewing the Student Information Verification Form to ensure that all contact info is correct.  The Canadian Anti-Spam form should be completed for any email address for which you would like to receive information.  Finally, our students and a parent/guardian should go through the Acceptable Use of Technology form so that expectations are clear on using devices and the wireless network in an appropriate manner at school.  We are also encouraging students to bring in their student fee.  I provided an outline of how the student fee supports activities at school in my first week newsletter that went home.

Monday Morning Assembly

For our grade 7 students, our weekly Monday Morning Assembly will be a new experience in organization and building spirit.  We gather Monday mornings as a full community to listen to our Glee club sing O Canada, to pray and reflect, and to review the weekly agenda.  Students are encouraged to bring their school agendas to record pertinent information.  Another part of our assemblies include student presentations that shine light on learning skills, gospel values and our Catholic Graduate Expectations.

We are hoping all of our parent/guardian community is able to join us on September 18th from 6:00 to 8:00 pm for our Meet the Staff evening.  It provides us an opportunity to introduce staff, discuss school priorities and answer any questions that our community might have.  Please contact the school if you require some language support for this evening.

Have a great week;

Sean Kelly

St. Patrick's Blog Week of September 2nd, 2014

St. Patrick's Blog

Week of September 2nd, 2014

Welcome Back to School!

I would like to extend a very warm return to our grade 8 students and families, and an enthusiastic welcome to our grade 7 students and parents!  We are anxious to begin the learning process within our school community this year.  

On Tuesday, we will have a special schedule providing some additional time in homebase so that teachers can provide students with information about the school year, and distribute a number of forms that we are asking students to bring home to their parents/guardians.  Included in this package is a welcoming letter from the administration explaining these forms and a number of school initiatives for the year.  

Our staff met for a liturgy and to review directions for the school year last week, and I had the opportunity to share a number of thank you’s at that time.  I would also like to share with our parent community our appreciation of our custodial staff, led by Mr. Massey, as well as our office administrators Ms. Clarke and Ms. Foley for their extensive work preparing for the start of this year.  They have worked very hard to ensure that we will have a smooth start, and their work will continue to the end of the year.

Some of the information that our students will receive this week that we would ask you to return to the school after reviewing at home:

• Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation information: Please fill out, sign and return so we can continue to communicate with you electronically by email.
• Verification forms: Please review and correct any information on the sheet.  You are also encouraged to return the language support sheet attached to the form if you require some support in social situations such as our meet the staff or interview opportunities.
• Student Fee: Information is included on the Welcome Letter that describes how we use the student fee.  Please send this in with your child to their homebase teacher.

We are excited about beginning the social, academic and spiritual walk with our community this year.  One of our initiatives includes keeping students, parents and guardians up to date with school news through this blog.  There are other modes of communicating with the school found on the welcoming letter from the administration that your child will bring home on Tuesday.  Please review this and contact the school if we can help with anything.

Have a great week;

Sean Kelly