Dear Mustang Families, 

What another great week here at PMPS! Our school was represented proudly at the junior and intermediate soccer tournaments. The teams showed true grit and determination as they played their hardest and represented us with team work and true Mustang pride! 

On Monday, we had an incredible celebration recognizing our students’ amazing fundraising efforts for the Terry Fox Run! A huge thank you to all of our students, families, and community members who were able to support this important cause. Together, our school raised an incredible $1,118 for the Terry Fox Foundation! As part of the celebration, our top fundraisers had the opportunity to pie their teachers in the face! One of our students has gone above and beyond, raising over  $10,000 for the Terry Fox run over the past five years. To celebrate this incredible accomplishment, she had the opportunity to pie me in the face! It was wonderful to hear our students laughing, cheering, and celebrating together. There was so much joy and school spirit throughout the event. What a fantastic way to start the week and celebrate what we can accomplish when our school community comes together for a great cause!

We recognized concussion awareness this week and also recognized National Truth and Reconciliation Day with many classes learning about the calls to action in our junior and intermediate grades. There was so much orange on Wednesday and we thank everyone for their support.  

Today was a pretty exciting day at our school! CBC Television came to visit as part of a story about the Upper Grand District School Board and some of the innovative work happening in mathematics instruction. We were incredibly proud that Mrs. Corbett was selected to showcase some of this work at Princess Margaret. CBC spent time interviewing Mrs. Corbett and one of the Board’s math facilitators, and then joined her classroom to see a math lesson in action. There was definitely a buzz of excitement throughout the school, and it was wonderful to see Princess Margaret and the hard work of our staff and students being recognized! We have been told that the full interview will air on CBC Radio and that portions of the story will also be featured on both local and national CBC television news. They are planning to air the story sometime in the middle of next week, and we will be sure to share the details once we have them for anyone who would like to tune in. We are very proud of Mrs. Corbett and our entire Princess Margaret team!

Please note our second  school council meeting of the year is scheduled on the 8th of October at 6pm. This meeting will be all about the Holiday Craft Fair.  Please attend if you are able or check out the minutes which are sent out following the meeting. 

In case you missed the email I sent earlier this week, below is a link to the Upper Grand District School Board’s update on how our board performed overall on EQAO. If you have a moment, I encourage you to check it out: https://www.ugdsb.ca/article/18110 . I would also like to take this opportunity to share how Princess Margaret performed on EQAO, and I could not be prouder of our students and staff! We surpassed both the board and provincial standards in all three areas in both grade 3 & 6. This is something worth acknowledging. 

*Percentage of students who wrote EQAO and met the provincial standard (level 3/4 , Gr.B/A)

Grade 4 and 7 students will be bringing home their individual scores tomorrow, Friday. I am very proud of our students and all of their accomplishments. 

IMPORTANT: NEW SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS: Please follow us and thank you if you already!

Our Princess Margaret website is  https://www.ugdsb.ca/PrincessMargaret/ and our Twitter/ X page is: @margaret_ps . 

Our  new Facebook and Instagram accounts are: Facebook: Princess MargaretPS- New and Instagram: @psprincessmargaret 

Important Upcoming Dates: 

October: 

-2nd: GET REAL inclusion assembly grades 4-8 (letter sent home)

-5th:World Teacher’s Day

-9th: Officer Amy at PMPS to present about Cyber safety to all grade 5-8s (email sent home with new date) 

We are celebrating World Teachers’ Day, which takes place on October 5th! This is a special opportunity to recognize the amazing, hardworking, caring, and dedicated teachers here at Princess Margaret Public School. Our teachers do so much more than teach us reading, writing, math, science, art, and all the other things we learn each day. They encourage us when things are difficult, celebrate our successes, help us learn from our mistakes, and work incredibly hard to make our school a place where every student can learn, grow, and belong. To all of our incredible PMPS teachers: thank you for your patience, your creativity, your kindness, and the countless ways you support our students every single day. We appreciate you more than you know! Parents/ Caregivers, , if you see one of your teachers on the 5th, take a moment to say thank you and let them know something you appreciate about them. Happy World Teachers’ Day to the amazing teachers of Princess Margaret! We are so lucky to have you!

-12th: Thanksgiving- No School

-13th: Grade 7 Immunizations 

-15th: Fall Dental Screenings (email was sent this week) 

-16th: Developmental Language Disorder Awareness Day 

-20th: ECE appreciation day

-20th: All IEPs go home

-23rd & 30th: Diary Educator’s Program K-8 (letters will come home)

-26th: PD Day -no school for students 

-27th to 29th: CCAT grade 3 testing

-28th: PMPS individual picture retakes, staff photo, and class photos

November: 

-2nd to 6th: Treaties Recognition Week

-5th: New Director &CEO Mr. MacDonald & SO Mr. Cousins visit

-11th: Remembrance Day 

-11th: Progress reports go home

-27th: PD Day (interview day)

December: 

-5th: 30th Annual Holiday Craft Fair at PMPS 9am-2pm. 

Spirit Days: 

-October 9th: Fall Colours!  Wear fall colours like brown, red, orange, or yellow to celebrate Fall and Thanksgiving!

-October 16th: October is Global Diversity Awareness Month!  Let’s promote cultural diversity, inclusion, and mutual respect worldwide by wearing lots of bright colours! 

-October 23rd: School Colours Day! PMPS students and staff can wear purple, grey, blue, or white to show their school pride!

-Preparation for Diwali: Each class can make a colourful paper chain - with a sunflower on it- to be ready for Diwali on November 8th. Paper chains due to Miss. Lyon on November 6th!

-October 30th: Black and Orange Day OR  Costume Day

Reminders:

Milk & Pizza Sales: Milk is cash only ($1.25)  and will be on sale on the 25th. Pasta sales are also up and running now and we are also selling freezies. 

Supervision: Please remember that students should not be arriving before 820am in the morning and need to be picked up/ or leave the school at the dismissal bell at 250pm. Our school day is from 830am to 250pm every day. 

We’ll see everyone for another day of learning on Friday. Have a wonderful weekend. Thank you for your ongoing support.

Andrea Papavasiliou

Proud Principal of PMPS