Hello,

As we near the end of the first month of school things are moving along nicely. In our immediate future I wanted parents to be aware of our first of two Professional Development (PD) days this Friday October 3, 2008. With a theme focusing on Special Education, this particular day serves as an opportunity for the entire staff at Bell HS to learn together and grow as a team all in an attempt to better serve your children. There are no classes this day.

Parents should also be aware of our second and last PD day to be held on November 14, 2008. The theme of this day will be Assessment & Evaluation. This day will see teachers at Bell HS congregating with teachers within our family of schools (AY Jackson, West Carleton, Earl of March) for a rich day of speakers and activities.

Finally, beginning next week (Oct. 6, 2008) you will find attached a Weekly Calendar. It is my intention to place this in my blog space each Friday afternoon to help families with planning of weekly schedules. As you will see the calendar is a quick snapshot of upcoming events and activities and where possible we will try to make practice and game days and times available as well. It will list important upcoming events as well and will include information on such things as Progress Reports and Parent-Teacher Interviews, for example.

Sincerely,

Bruce Whitehead

Principal

Hello,

What a pleasure it is for me to welcome back staff and students to the 2008-2009 academic year. I confess to thoroughly enjoying the dog days of summer but I must admit that there is something magical about the first day “buzz” and excitement associated with the return of students to classes!

Our first day of the year went off without a hitch in large part due to the efforts of many staff and students. In this our inaugural year of our LINK program, the planning team did an outstanding job in welcoming our newest Bruins through a program specifically designed to support grade nine students in this their first year of high school. The program will not stop here and I believe its impact will be pervasive across grades in improving an already healthy school climate. As a staff we look forward to working with students continuing to facilitate their social, emotional, and academic growth this year.

This new blog will hopefully serve numerous purposes over the year and I encourage you to visit it periodically as I strive to use it as another means of facilitating communication between the school and community.

Mr. Whitehead
Principal