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From the President Happy November! I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving celebrations and had some Halloween fun. Thanksgiving is also a great reminder to say “thank you” a little more often – so it might just be the theme of my message this month 😉 October was a great month at the preschool as we had Ms. Queenie join our school. We are still searching for one more Support Worker, so if you know someone who would be the perfect fit, please let your executive know. Huge thanks to Marti Longstaff, Vice-President for stepping into the role of substitute teacher this month. Both her and Jana Royal did a great job in the class supporting Ms. Donna. I’d also like to thank those on the fundraising committee for their hard work. Thanks to Sarah Johnston of Notting Hill Photography for the family photo shoot and braving those long days outside. Thank you, Leah Yallop for organizing the pub night. It was a ton of fun and a great way to kick off the year. I’d also like to thank our social coordinator Karyn Audet for her SkyZone event. Not only was it a fun night of […]
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From the President Hello QPPS Families! It has been a fantastic and busy first month at Queens Park Preschool. I hope you have all had the chance to settle in with your new routines and your little ones are thoroughly enjoying the school. As October is the month to be thankful, I want to thank our incredible teachers for their hard work in making the school such a beautiful space and welcoming all our kids to their new classes. This month, we will introduce one new staff member: Ms. Queenie who will be joining as a teacher in our 4-year-old classes. She will no doubt be a great addition to the preschool. I also want to thank all of you for your volunteer hours so far. Be it cleaning the school or organizing a fundraiser, designing a website or crunching numbers, without you, this school wouldn’t be the place it is. So many thanks for being part your children’s first school experience. The beginning of the school year is always full of such excitement and many plans for activities and events to come. I do hope that you will take full advantage of the social activities, fundraising outings, and in-class […]
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From the President It’s the end of another year at QPPS and I am honoured to have had a chance to help guide our preschool on behalf of all of you. I have made so many friends along the way and it has been wonderful to get to know all of the families this year. I don’t want to get too sappy on you – so for now it’s down to business 🙂 Executive Elections Since our May GM, we have had several families accept nominations for the remaining roles on the executive committee. Thank you to everyone who has stepped up and offered to help run the preschool next year! We are still looking for a family to take on the role of Orientation Elect. This is a calendar year position, so requires a families who will be in the preschool for the next 2 years. The orientation coordinator works with the Enrollment Coordinator, welcoming new and returning families back to the preschool. The person in this role helps ensure our families are trained and ready to be duty parents in the classroom. While there is some preparation and training before and after, the majority of the work […]
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From the President We’re less than 1 month away from our 50th anniversary celebration! We’re so excited to welcome our current and past families for an afternoon of family fun. Join us May 14, from 12:00 noon – 3:00pm for music, games, princesses, and more! We’re looking for volunteers for the day. If you know of older kids, teens, grandparents… anyone who might like to help out for the afternoon – we’d love to hear about it! Help is needed between 11:00am – 5:00pm on May 14th. Duties include: help with setting up, assisting with games and the BBQ. For older kids who need volunteer hours for school, we can provide a letter to document their volunteer hours. Also, if you haven’t yet noticed the big, white box on the counter… the chicks are coming! During the first week of May there will be baby chicks hatching at the preschool! So exciting. The chicks will be with us until May 10. Preschool Art Show In celebration of Queen’s Park Parent Participation Preschool’s 50th Anniversary, the current students at Queen’s Park Preschool have joined together to create colourful works of art to share with the New Westminster community. Inspired by recent […]
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From the President Welcome Spring! I’m so pleased to see the flowers blossoming, the sun shining, and smiles all around. Once again I get to start off this month with some “sunshine and roses”. First and foremost, a very warm welcome to Teacher Lynda (read a little further on for more about her!). We are so pleased to have Lynda join the 3s and look forward to getting to know her more over the coming months. And welcome to all our new and returning families joining in September! We’ll see you soon at the Coffee Party in April. A few thank you’s as well – firstly to Artisan Landscaping for donating sand for our outdoor sandbox and to all the parents who arrived in the rain to move the sand! Next to Kelly, from the 3-year old afternoon class, for offering to take over as Class Rep for the remainder of the year. We will sorely miss Tasha and her family as they begin their new adventure elsewhere. Contacting your Executive Members As part of our goal of improving communications, we have created generic email addresses for our executive members. This will allow an easier transition from year to year, as the […]
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From the President A few THANK YOU’S to get us started this month Enrolment Team A HUGE thank you to our amazing enrolment team of Donald and Natalie! Not only is the preschool full for next September, the process was smooth and easy for all involved. Donald and Natalie have been making changes to the process and further streamlining the paperwork involved – with wonderful results. If you see them in your classes, please be sure to say thanks. Word of mouth is best advertisement, so thanks to everyone who raves about us to their friends and neighbours. Document Review An equally HUGE thank you goes out to Jeff, our VP, for tackling the document review. This involved the always exciting job of reviewing the preschool’s constitution, bylaws, handbook, polices and procedures. As you can imagine, upwards of 60 pages gave him many evenings of inspired reading! This review is to be done every 2-3 years, and the preschool was several years behind, so we thank Jeff very much for bringing us back up to date. And thank you to those other families who assisted with proof reading and providing feedback… it is very much appreciated. Teachers If you have […]
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From Our President Farewell Teacher Jenny As most families will have read already, it is with great sadness we announce the resignation of Teacher Jenny. Jenny has accepted a position as a Strong Start Facilitator with Stride Elementary. Working with the Strong Start program has been a long term goal of Jenny’s for some time and while we are devastated she is leaving the preschool, we are very happy for her as well. We will keep everyone informed of our recruitment process, and if you do have any questions or concerns, please feel free to directly contact any member of the executive committee. We appreciate your understanding and patience during this transitional period. Support Workers: 3PM and 4AM We are so pleased to welcome Teacher Jennifer to our 3 year old afternoon class and Teacher Donna to our 4 year old morning class! The role of a Support Worker is to assist the Teachers in supporting all the children in a class. Please take a moment to welcome them both to your classes. If you have any questions about the role of a Support Worker, please feel free to ask your teachers. Teacher Carli Goes on Practicum – Good Luck! […]
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It’s registration time! The January general meeting will be your opportunity for current families to register children for the 2016/2017 preschool year. Bring your $100 deposit fee if you are registering a child for next year. The executive would like your very quick and valuable feedback on the class and family photo shoot that Notting Hill Photography provided for us last month. It is a very small 6 question survey that should take no longer than 30 seconds plus additional feedback response writing time. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/W9LY9GC All answers are completely anonymous unless you identify yourself for follow up conversation and detailed feedback would be most appreciated so that we can improve it for next year. 2016 Important Tax Information Did you know you can claim your preschool fees on your tax return? The person with the lower net income may claim preschool tuition as childcare provided that they have earned income. CRA’s current stance on this (per Income Tax folio S1-F3-C1) is that payments made to an educational institution for a child under the compulsory school age (e.g., preschool) are generally considered child care rather than education, unless facts indicate otherwise. As such, preschool tuition would generally qualify (unless facts indicate otherwise). […]
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From the President Here are a few quick tidbits to start off your December 🙂 Queen’s Park Preschool Turns 50 The planning is well on the way and we need your help! As part of the carnival, we’d like to have a music stage showcasing some of the preschool’s talent. Dance, music, singing… you name it, we want to hear about it. If you know someone – kids or adults – who might like to join our music stage, please let us know. We’re also searching for preschool memorabilia… class photos, artwork, report cards (yes, there used to be report cards!)… all those things parents save, we would love to see. As part of the celebration, we’re planning a visual timeline showcasing the preschool over the decades. We would love to see memorabilia from any decade, but we have a special interest in the 1960’s and 1970’s. New Westminster Family Place Once again this year, Queen’s Park Preschool will be collecting books and other items for New Westminster Family Place. New Westminster Family Place is a non-profit family resource program for families with children from newborns to five years of age. For the last several years our preschool has offered […]
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From the President This month (and possibly still reeling from Halloween candy overload) I will keep this short and sweet (see how I snuck that pun in there 😉 Mark your calendars… Queens Park Preschool turns 50 this year and we’re planning the celebration for May 14, 2016. We are working on a community carnival – lots of fun for the whole family. Stay tuned for more information. Have you checked out the newly refurbished teachers’ chair? Thanks in part to our City of New Westminster grant last year, the comfy chair and ottoman at the circle carpet has been fixed up and is ready for lots more stories and snuggles in the coming years. Thanks to Teacher Jenny for making this happen! Ahem, have you missed a General Meeting…? Please submit your parent education make up assignment within 1 week of the missed meeting. Parent Education is part of the benefit of a parent participation preschool, and it’s also part of our responsibility as membership. If homework is more than 2 weeks late, we are violating our licensing. Please, make life easier on your class rep… it’s never nice having to “nag” another parent about homework! Just a […]
