School District No. 8 (Kootenay Lake)
HUMEELEMENTARYSCHOOL
School District No. 8 (Kootenay Lake)
Office of the Principal
310 Nelson Avenue Ph: (250) 352-3186
Nelson, B.C. FAX: (250) 352-3183
Welcome Back to 2016 2017 school year at Hume!
It’s been another fast summer! We are excited at Hume to see familiar faces and meet new families starting at Hume for the first time.
The phone has been ringing and the emails buzzing with many questions about start up, school supplies, who their child’s teacher is and so on!! All exciting stuff for sure!!
School Supplies:
The school purchases the supplies for all students. The fees are as follows:
$50 per Kindergarten student
$60 for all other students –includes the agenda
Fees are due in September. Cheques are to be made out to Hume Elementary school.
Tuesday September 6
This is the start of school. We begin at 8:30 and end at 11:30. Buses will run three hours earlier on this day so will leave at 11:30 AM.
Students and families will meet in the gym. Students are asked to sit in their LAST YEAR’S class line. New students will be added to a particular class for the morning. Kindergarten students are welcome to attend but this is not a day they attend class.
PAC will be hosting a Welcome back tea to meet and greet familiar and new faces!!
Staff will then meet all afternoon about the startup, including the class assignments.
Wednesday September 7th
In the past this was also an assembly day. Not so this year. Parents are asked to drop students off as a regular school day.
Students will line up in grade lines outside and be led in by a teacher to a designated class. From there teachers will organize the students into their pre-determined class and the first full day starts!! Classes end at 2:30. Students will share with parents at the end of the day which classes they are in. Please see below for considerations for class assignments.
Classroom configurations/assignments
This is a complicated one this year. We are seeing an increase in enrolments. As a result, the configuration (whether a 1/2 class or 2/3 (for example) is dependent upon what grade the new students are in. We will make every effort to create classrooms so that we hopefully do not have to re-shuffle. I will keep our families informed if this becomes the case.
I feel the words we choose have a powerful impact on students, so we are careful about using words such as ‘kept behind” in grade 3/4class or “moving ahead” to a 4/5 class. (This applies to any grade level that has several classroom options.) These imply one is better than the other. Students may see that several grades could be in two or more classrooms with a different teacher. What is important is that we teach children. What we consider for our classroom configurations are:
Each child has someone they are connected to
A balance or learning needs
Support available within each classroom
Gender balance (if possible)
Being in an older group, can give opportunities for leadership within the classroom
Being in a younger group, can give opportunities for guidance
Reflective parent input
As well, class size is mandated by the ministry. A kindergarten class is maxed out at 22 students. This includes a kindergarten grade 1 combination. Grades1-3 are maxed out at 24, this includes a grade 3/4 option. Grades 4 and 5 (up to grade 12) are maxed out at 30. There are exceptions for exceeding these numbers if necessary.