Public-health officials are asking all British Columbians to get their influenza and COVID-19 immunizations as soon as possible, as rates of respiratory illnesses are on the rise throughout the province. Please visit this page for more information.
The Ministries of Health and Education recognizes that COVID variants continue to be prevalent. At this time, public health data indicates relative stability in the severity of health outcomes. As such, the guidelines for COVID will be similar to other respiratory infections and rely primarily on self-management – unless otherwise notified.
As a small school with strong traffic controls (limiting entrance to our school only to enrolled students/families and staff) and ongoing classroom cleaning throughout each day, the risk for virus spread is low. Our students and teachers have been very proactive in reminding themselves and each other to wash their hands throughout the day.
The school practices stringent cleaning routines and facilities are sanitized regularly. North Creek and Anchor Point facilities have been and will remain vigilant with regards to cleaning, hand hygiene, and educating students on respiratory etiquette.
All children who are sick must remain at home. Parents must assess their child/ren daily before sending them to school. If you are unsure whether or not your child is sick, you must practice self-isolation and use the BC COVID-19 Self-Assessment Tool. You may also contact 8-1-1, or the local public health unit to seek further input as well as your family physician or nurse practitioner to be assessed for COVID-19 and other infectious respiratory diseases.
A child is considered sick if they exhibit the following symptoms:
• fever of 38.3 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) or higher
• diarrhea
• vomiting
• coughing excessively
• are infectious (e.g. runny nose with green or yellow mucous)
• have a communicable disease (e.g. conjunctivitis/pink eye).
It is essential you keep your child at home if you feel that your child is too sick to participate in our program, including participation in outdoor activities. All communicable diseases must be reported. Please bring a note from your doctor stating that your child is no longer infectious when your child returns to school.
If your child becomes sick during the day, you will be called to take your child out of school for the remainder of the day. If we cannot contact you, we will call your emergency contact to pick your child up. Your child will be placed in an isolated room while awaiting pick-up.
Please let us know if your child will be absent due to illness. This enables us to account for missing students and to be aware of patterns of illnesses that might be spreading.
Please review our Communicable Disease Plan for more information.
Providing students with a physical, emotional, and psychological school environment that is safe and respectful is our highest priority. We take a coordinated whole-school approach to bullying prevention. As part of this approach, students have the opportunity to contribute and to voice issues and concerns on emerging safety and well- being policies.
PEER CONFLICT, MEAN BEHAVIOUR, AND BULLYING: WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?
It can be difficult for parents to know what is really happening when children experience conflict with each other. It’s important to distinguish rude, mean and bullying behaviour as each must be handled differently so as to keep children safe while supporting their social development when it comes to learning how to get along with others.
Peer Conflict: Conflict between and among peers is a natural part of growing up. Children will disagree and at times, find it impossible to solve their own problems. They may become frustrated to the point that they’ll blurt out mean words or act out physically. Peer conflict is defined when conflict occurs between children who usually play together, have equal power (similar age, size, social status), are equally upset, and are able to work things out with adult help (after calming down). Staff at our school respond by facilitating conflict resolution – to help the children talk it out, and see each other’s perspective.
Rude and Mean Behaviour: Elementary children can often be inadvertently rude. Their way of speaking or their actions may hurt others. They try out behaviours to assert themselves –sometimes saying or doing mean things –such as making fun of others, using a hurtful name, taking something without permission, leaving a child out, or “budging” in line. If it is mean behavior, usually it is not planned and seems to happen spontaneously or by chance. It may be aimed at any child nearby and the child being mean may feel bad when an adult points out the harm they’ve caused. When adults see mean behavior they should not ignore it. Adults should respond quickly, firmly, and respectfully to stop the behavior, to let kids know that their actions are hurtful, and to re-direct children to more positive behaviour. This quick response stops children from developing a pattern of mean behaviour as their way of interacting with peers and prevents mean behavior from escalating into bullying. It is a lot easier to correct a child for one nasty comment than to change a pattern of cruelty that grows over time.
Bullying Behaviour: Bullying is a serious behavior that has three key features –all three must be present for the situation to be considered bullying:
1) Power imbalance –One child clearly has power over the other(s), which may be due to age, size, social status, and so on.
2) Intention to harm –The purpose of the bullying behaviour is to harm or hurt other(s) –it’s intended to be mean and is clearly not accidental.
3) Repeated over time –bullying behaviour continues over time, and gets worse with repetition. There is a real or implied threat that the behaviour will not stop, and in fact will become even more serious. The effect on the child who is being bullied is increased fear, apprehension, and distress.
Often, by the time adults find out about what is happening, the child has tried many ways to stop the bullying but cannot do so on their own. At LGM, adults are required to address bullying behaviour and ensure the safety of the student who has been targeted immediately. Our staff will reassure the children who may have witnessed the behaviour that adults are taking care of the situation. Staff will also help the child who has been bullying others to take responsibility for their actions and change their behaviour. They will monitor the situation to ensure the bullying stops, and will support the child who has been bullied to regain confidence and a sense of safety.
Staff may also follow-up with the students who observed the behaviour to help them learn what to do when they see bullying. The “conflict resolution” style of bringing the children together is not recommended in bullying situations, until considerable time has gone by and all children are feeling safe enough to talk about what happened so that relationships can be healed.
HealthLinkBC is the gateway to access non-emergency health and safety information in BC. It offers services by phone (8-1-1) and on the net (click image on the left). It also has a collection of print (BC HealthGuide handbook and HealthLinkBC files), and telephone resources, which put both services and health information into the hands of BC residents. HealthLinkBC’s goal is to enable residents to better manage their health and the health of their families.
ALLERGIES
All information concerning your child’s allergies, food or environmental must be provided to the school. This information, which should include the indications of an allergic reaction and actions to be taken, will be kept on file to be used in case of emergencies.
Certain foods such as peanuts and peanut products will be omitted from our school snack entirely if the Head of School deems it to be hazardous. Class allergy information is sent out at the beginning of each year and updated as necessary. We ask all families to be sensitive to allergies by avoiding the sending in of class birthday treats or snacks that contain substances that any students may be allergic to.
SNACK
The school provides healthy and nutritious snacks (organic, where possible) such as seasonal fresh fruits, vegetables, rice cakes, and crackers, as well as filtered water for your child. It is mandatory to advise the school in writing of any known allergies (food and otherwise) affecting your child.
LUNCH
Lunch at our school provides a relevant opportunity to help our students acknowledge their personal bounty. It is the school’s policy to use this time to help children appreciate the concepts of healthy eating and gracious living. Etiquette guidelines and the observance of manners with respect to the service, consumption and completion of a meal are presented to our students.
Extended-day and elementary students bring lunch and a drink from home or order from our Hot Lunch Program. When packing your child’s lunch, please keep in mind how much or how little he/she actually eats. For young children, a half sandwich is normally better than a whole one, and fresh fruits, sliced into bite-sized pieces, are preferable to canned fruits prepared with sugar. Please also ensure that the containers used can be easily opened. We encourage you to think about nutrition when packing lunch: Soda pop and highly sugared drinks are discouraged. Filtered water is always available at the school. The school provides dishes, glasses, napkins and cutlery for all students.
The Hot Lunch Program provided by:
Choices Market, a local, BC owned and operated retailer of natural, organic and specialty foods. Choices is a strong supporter of not only the farmers, but also local organizations that work towards building healthy, sustainable communities such as Lions Gate. The hot lunch menu was created by one of the Choices dietitians and offers nutrition education through themes: fair trade, non-GMO, gluten-free, organic, vegetarian, and local lunches. Available two times per week on Tuesdays and Thursdays, each meal will have a Main (with a vegetarian option) and a side of veggies and/or fruit and an option for drink and dessert. Food will be served family-style to reduce packaging waste.
AND
Rocky Mountain Flatbread Co. founded by Suzanne & Dominic Fielden had a bold vision to create a family restaurant that could , “change the world one slice of pizza at a time.” They partnered with Chef Oliver Zulauf to create a healthy & delicious flatbread menu using sustainably produced, local food that connects the farm, family & community.