The GPA Casino Fundraising Event is coming up on March 6 and 7, 2025 at Pure Casino (1420 Meridian Rd NE). We are in particular need of volunteers on the evening of Thursday March 6, as well as in the count room on both nights.

This casino event is expected to raise approximately $70,000 for GATE students! These funds are vital to be able to provide our students with curriculum enhancement opportunities such as: science equipment, technology, field trips, drama and music workshops, classroom literacy materials and math resources. Without these funds, each experience would be an additional cost to parents, or not take place at all.

Training for each position is provided on-the spot and no special skills are required. It is also a nice way to meet other GATE parents and hear about student experiences in other grades/schools.

Stars For Scholarly Youth are offering their mentorship program to GATE students. This is SSY’s fifth year running this program with GATE students. We have received great feedback from our previous mentees and many have had the chance to make informed decisions about their post-secondary careers. 

This program aims to prepare students for better integration into post-secondary life in the future. Mentees are paired up with a postsecondary student Mentor. The students meet a minimum of once a month online or in-person to discuss University, career aspirations, useful resources, and purpose. The mentor is responsible for engaging the mentee in these conversations (mentees are likely to be shy), but conversation topics and some resources will be provided. 

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.

February 4, 2025: Healthy Relationships
This is an interactive workshop to learn how to navigate those sometimes awkward but essential conversations that foster well-being, healthy relationships and informed decision-making. We empower parents with knowledge, skills and confidence to engage in open, honest and supportive conversations about sexuality and sexual health with their children.

In this workshop, we will describe and explore healthy, unhealthy and abusive relationship patterns. We will learn about effective communication and practice discussing topics related to romantic/intimate relationships in ways that are grounded in your values. February 6, 2025: ADHD and Executive Functioning
The session will provide an overview of ADHD and how issues with impulsivity and/or inattention impact children’s ability to manage their environments. The session will also explore the impact ADHD has on Executive Functioning and how it relates to managing everyday tasks, and meeting daily expectations at home and at school, including social, emotional, behavioural, and academic demands.

February 24, 2025: Managing Challenging Behaviours
Everyone has intense emotions, the trick is being able to navigate them.
Through this presentation you will learn about the crisis cycle and how to intervene at a different moment to reduce the risk of an intense emotional outburst. You can use these strategies with anyone in your life, despite their age.

March 4, 2025: Navigating Technology with our Youth
The message of this presentation is not only based on technology, but also about a child’s healthy brain development and the necessary parenting/caregiver role in creating healthy, emotional, regulated, and integrated brains. This presentation will address the underpinning of a child’s emotional brain development and how to grow it, as well as how technology can dangerously hijack this. The presentation is facilitated by a therapist from Juno House who has years of both clinical and facilitating experience. 

This workshop is designed to give attendees the skills to become their child’s emotional coach. The workshop will provide participants with:

• An understanding of the basic neuroscience behind healthy brain development,
• The dangers of technology for healthy brain development,
• Technology use rules that will help your child
• When building healthy brains, how to identify emotions in your child/student, and
• How to become your child’s/student’s emotional coach in only five steps and in that, build a resilient child.

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

ALSO CHECK OUT resources available through Mental Health Literacy HERE.

Reminder: AGM – Monday September 23, 2024

The Annual General Meeting for the GATE Parent Association will be held on Monday September 23, 2024 starting at 7:00 pm. We will be discussing the work of the GPA in prior years, discussing goals for the upcoming year, and presenting our audited financials for the previous year. As two of our board members are unable to continue on in their roles due to their children leaving GATE, we will also be appointing a new Vice President and Treasurer to take over for the second year of the two year term. The appointees are GATE parents who answered our call in the Spring and have been shadowing current Executive members since then.

Our bylaws require that you provide the following information in order to vote at the meeting:

• Full legal name
• Name of your student(s) attending the GATE program
• Name of the school your student is attending
• Grade of the student
• Home Address

You will be asked to provide this information during registration for the meeting, as well as your email address so we can send you the meeting link. It will be held online via Zoom and a link will be sent to all registered attendees prior to the meeting.

Register HERE for the Meeting

Minutes from the last AGM will be approved at the start of the meeting.  You can review our last AGM minutes here.

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 on the Poster/PDF icon below the correct session to register*

September 23, 2024: Cross Cultural Parenting Program – Session 1 

10:00 AM – Noon, provided by Calgary Immigrant Women’s Association (CIWA)

Participants will learn:
• Challenges of parenting in a new country and culture
• Social and institutional pressures
• Norms, values and laws in Canada with a focus on supervision and child abuse laws

September 24, 2024: ADHD Essentials for Parents
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders in children. It is usually first diagnosed in childhood and often lasts into adulthood. Children with ADHD may have trouble paying attention, controlling impulsive behaviours, or over-activity. There are three different types of ADHD, depending on which symptoms are strongest in the individual, and each of these subtypes may impact children differently. Neurological deficits, not unwillingness, keep kids with attention deficit disorder from learning and behaving in expected ways. Adults are key in setting these students on a path to success! In this session, we will discuss ADHD diagnosis, the ADHD brain, ADHD as a disorder of Executive Functioning, treatment, and setting kids up for success.

September 26, 2024: Navigating Technology with our Youth
The message of this presentation is not only based on technology, but also about a child’s healthy brain development and the necessary parenting/caregiver role in creating healthy, emotional, regulated, and integrated brains. This presentation will address the underpinning of a child’s emotional brain development and how to grow it, as well as how technology can dangerously hijack this.

We believe that talking does not grow neurons; experience grows neurons. This workshop is designed to give attendees the skills to become their child’s emotional coach. The workshop will provide participants with:
• An understanding of the basic neuroscience behind healthy brain development,
• The dangers of technology for healthy brain development,
• Technology use rules that will help your child
• When building healthy brains, how to identify emotions in your child/student, and
• How to become your child’s/student’s emotional coach in only five steps and in that, build a resilient child.

The presentation is facilitated by a therapist from Juno House who has years of both clinical and facilitating experience. Juno House was founded in 2008 as a Centre of Excellence for adolescent girls and young women who are experiencing anxiety-based mental health issues of self harm, obsessive compulsive disorders, depression and eating disorders.

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

ALSO CHECK OUT resources available through Mental Health Literacy HERE.