Friday, September 1, 2017
Dear JICS Families,
Finally! We’ve missed you! All of us at the Lab School are eager to be with your children and to hear about your family’s summer holidays and adventures. Welcome to the 2017-2018 school year at the “newly renovated” Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study.
Our first day back is Wednesday, September 6 at 8:45 am. The wonderful JICS Parents’ Association Executive will have coffee ready at drop off and they look forward to connecting with all parents.
The JICS Blog: Our New Primary Form of Communication for School News
Each time the school blog is updated with important information, you will receive an email notice from the website. We will be phasing out sending school wide emails from the “Jackman ICS News” account once school begins.
Renovations
During these last weeks of the summer, there has been a feverish pace of renovation activity in order to be ready for next week. Teachers have been unpacking hundreds of boxes and arranging the classrooms to be as comfortable and inviting as possible. We can’t wait to show you our new colourful and sun-filled spaces. We have been documenting the progress on Twitter.
Once the school year begins, the construction focus will be on 56 Spadina Avenue (our new gymnasium, lunch room, junior grade classrooms…) so that we can move into the addition in the Fall.
Morning Drop Off
The front of the school is reserved for a “Kiss & Drive” program to ensure the safety of all children arriving at school. This space is for cars that are moving through in order to drop children off to JICS staff members who are outside on the sidewalk receiving students and taking them to the supervised playground. Parents cannot leave their cars in the “Kiss & Drive” zone as it blocks all waiting vehicles from approaching the school and creates an unsafe drop off zone.
For the first day/s of school, parents may want to park in order to escort their child to school. Legal local pay parking is available in our neighbourhood and info can be found here.
School Dismissal
Please refer to the Parent Handbook re the new and “safety improved” dismissal procedures.
Reminder – Food Safety
I would like to remind you as you are preparing lunches and snacks that due to anaphylactic food allergies, all snacks and lunch foods brought to the school must be completely nut-free. We thank you for understanding that this is a life issue for some of our children from Nursery through to Grade 6. Your cooperation is appreciated.
Real Food for Real Kids Hot lunch program begins Monday, September 11.
Insight on Inquiry: How we Start the Year
All JICS teachers know that the first days of school are key in creating an orientation toward “thinking-rich” learning. They carefully design the beginning of the school year to foster inquiry-based learning skills. Enjoy this video from our SK teacher, Carol Stephenson as an example of how this is done.
School Forms Online (SFO) Thank you to all families who have completed their school forms registration online. If you have not yet accessed SFO, you were sent a reminder notification yesterday with your specialized link to create an account. Please complete your registration by September 6.
Wednesday Program Registration A reminder that you may bring in your registration forms beginning Tuesday, September 5. Nancy will be in the school office from 8:00am.
See you on Wednesday!
All the best,
Richard
Richard Messina
Principal
Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study Laboratory School
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education | University of Toronto
416-934-4509 | richard.messina@utoronto.ca
twitter: richardmessina2 @JackmanICS
