From the Head of School
This past week I have been very impressed by the amount of student engagement that I have seen on campus. This has taken many forms, and while we are careful to follow all of the safety protocols that will keep our students safe and healthy, we have found ways to engage students in meaningful learning activities. An example of this was the Grade 4/5 Poetry Café this afternoon. To celebrate the end of the 4th Grade unit on poetry, Ms. Green transformed her classroom into an atmospheric café environment where our 4th and some 5th Grade students presented their original poems as well as some poems from well-known authors. The program included guest appearances from teachers and even an original poem written by parent Dean Purvis. Following the latest Department of Health guidelines, parents who were vaccinated or had a recent negative COVID test, where able to participate, albeit at a distance of 6 feet. Here is one of the many excellent poems that were read today: Reba By Aidan SP I loved her so much, she was the best, she filled me with joy, and happiness, I loved petting her and scratching her ears, she was a good dog, the best dog, well at least to my ears, I always feared that she would die, but I was never ready to say goodbye, Why can’t they just stay with us forever.
Another example of great student engagement involved a presentation by some 8th grade students to our Kindergarten and Grade One class on cleaning the Los Angeles River. This is the community project that Zachary, Makaio and Arlene are undertaking and they presented this topic to our younger students to educate them on this issue. The presentation involved a demonstration of how water is cleaned through filtration and a video that they created to explain the problem. Our K/1 students were very impressed by these soon-to-be graduates, who did an excellent job in role-modeling good presentation skills.
To round out a week of activity, and keeping in the theme of springtime, Juliana Price, our Preschool on-line teacher, gave our Preschoolers a presentation on bees. And today, the entire school had fun dressing up as their favorite animal. This was inspired by the Student Council as one of the various fun/spirit days organized to make coming to school a fun experience for our students. On another topic, I am also sorry to let you know that the vaccination clinic being offered by Capitol Drugs at the GPS campus has been put on hold. This is due to the stop placed on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine by the CDC until a determination has been made of a possibly very rare side effect. We hope that this will be resolved soon as we are eager to help our community get vaccinated.
Parent Satisfaction Survey (JK-8th Grade) With things starting to get back to normal, we would like to continue with our annual parent IB satisfaction survey for families in JK - 8th grade. In order for the school to evaluate its progress in implementing the IB program, we would appreciate your taking a few minutes to complete a brief survey. There is a comment area at the end where you can expand on your thoughts if desired. The survey will run for one week through to Friday, April 23. Click here for the survey. Your feedback is very important and I thank you in advance for your time!
GPS Summer Camp For Students in Grades K-8 We are happy to announce that this summer we will be offering a Summer Camp for students in Kindergarten through Grade 8 on the GPS campus. The Summer Camp is being run in collaboration with The Green Leaf Academy, which has been running this very popular summer camp for many years in our area. The camp will run for 5 weeks starting on June 14th and will focus both on providing courses on improving core academic skills, as well as a variety of fun and interesting topics to engage students in this age group. Registration is now open to our community as well as students from all of the surrounding areas. For more information visit the Green Leaf website. Daily Schedule For Grades K-8 - Reminder Please remember that school starts at 8:00 a.m. for all Middle School classes and 8:15 for Lower School classes. Please plan your trip to school so that students can be in the classrooms by these times and factor in the extra time it might take for the morning screening.