September 2022 GATE Newsletter

NOTICE OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

The 2022 AGM will be held on Tuesday September 20th at 7:00 pm. 
Please join this virtual meeting to discuss:

  • Fundraising for the 2022-2023 School Year
  • Use of fundraising dollars 
  • Volunteer opportunities for 2022-2023 School Year
  • Status of GATE program within CBE

Did You Know…..

GATE Parents have raised over $120,000 through Casino Fundraising over the last 2 years. That is $120,000 of experiences that GATE students have enjoyed, without a cost to GATE parents!

Casino Funds have funded some of these cool experiences for our kids! 

  • DNA Lab materials for Henry Wise Wood GATE students
  • City Hall School for Queen Elizabeth GATE students
  • Field Trips for Hillhurst GATE students
  • Mobil Escape problem solving activities for Louis Riel GATE students
  • Tower gardens to start plants for a medicine garden for Henry Wise Wood GATE students
  • Vertigo Theatre Field Trip for Queen Elizabeth GATE students 

Many thanks to our parent volunteers for contributing to the GATE learning community.


2022-2023 GATE Parents Volunteers

Executive:
President – Traci Akierman
Vice-President – Alicia Mossing
Treasurer – Jeroen Pieterse
Secretary – Sunita Chowdhury

School Site Representatives:
Queen Elizabeth – Tina Leard
Henry Wise Wood – OPEN
Hillhurst School – Kathie Robert
Louis Riel School – Irina Rajakumar

Social Media Administrator – Amber McSween


UPCOMING PARENT EDUCATION SESSIONS

The Community Education Service (CES) is offering the following sessions for parents and families. Sessions are offered at no cost but registration is required. **CLICK HERE TO REGISTERClick on the Poster/PDF icon below the correct session to register**

Sept 19: Screen Time & Teen Mental Health
Teens have experienced significant life disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, including school closures, social distancing, missed milestones, and family stress (e.g., income loss, parent mental illness). While teens have begun to return to normal activities and routines, the potential for the COVID-19 pandemic to have significant consequences on teen mental health and well-being has gained considerable attention.

Join Dr. Brae Anne McArthur, a Registered Psychologist, to discuss the current state of youth mental health and the relationship between screen use activities and mental health outcomes for teens. You will leave this session with a broader understanding of screen use as both an effective (i.e., engaging with others via social connection for support) and ineffective (i.e., long duration of passive screen use) mechanism for teen mental health outcomes.

Sept 27: Words Matter! Children and Youth Mental Health Literacy
While there is a positive trend to more openly talk about the mental health of our children and ourselves, there is a lot of confusion about what the terms we use actually mean! What is the difference between a mental health problem, a mental health issue, a mental disorder, and stress and anxiety, for example?

Join Kathy Jarrell, Education Consultant with the AHS Mental Health Literacy Project, for an engaging talk to clarify the terms we use. Leave the session feeling more confident about the concepts, the science and ways to learn more. Let’s not just talk about mental health….let’s talk with shared understanding!

October 4: Understanding Psycho-Educational Assessments

Do you have a child or work with a student who struggles at school? Psychoeducational assessments combine standardized assessments of a child’s intellectual and academic abilities with the dynamic clinical judgment of a trained psychologist to determine the what, how, and why of struggling students. This process measures overall aptitude and academic achievement around core academic skills and any additional factors that may impact a child at school (e.g., attention and concentration, learning disability, mood, anxiety, etc.) and provides strategies to support them.
Whether a diagnosis is made or not, the information can be used to identify what the child needs to reach their potential. This session will take a deep dive into what caregivers and educators need to know about the psychoeducational process including:

  • When and why psychoeducational assessments are done
  • The psychological processes that underlie learning: such as language and phonological processing, fine-motor and graphomotor processing, executive functioning, visual-spatial processing, processing speed, working memory, etc.
  • The specific academic skills being investigated: including reading, writing, math, language, etc.
  • Aspects of social/emotional and behavioural functioning that may be impacting the student: including attention and concentration, depression, anxiety, etc.
  • The diagnostic process
  • Recommendations, strategies, and accommodations
  • Using the psychoeducational assessment report for Individual Education/Program Planning (IPPs, IEPs, etc.)


DID YOU KNOW you can access pre-recorded sessions for free HERE.

ALSO CHECK OUT resources available through Mental Health Literacy HERE.

How can we help you?

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