Greetings GAA Community,

We look forward to welcoming all parents to Parent/Teacher conferences next week on Monday, February 28, and Tuesday, March 1. I know you are excited to learn more about your child’s progress this year. Teachers have been working hard to be ready to share both your child’s successes and what they can work on for the remainder of this school year.

You will have plenty of time to discuss the journey your child has been on but also how your teacher will support the ‘next steps’ from March until the end of the year. You will also learn more about how you, as parents, can support the learning goals over the next few months in order to support your child's readiness for next year.

If you have not yet done so, please make sure to book your time with your child’s teacher as this is a great opportunity for you to engage with them and continue to learn more about how you can support their learning at home. Please ask many questions and take advantage of this time with your child’s teacher.

Please note that specialist teachers are also available for you to sign up for and learn how they are progressing in Arabic, Performing Arts, PE, Islamic Studies, and Visual Arts- depending on their grade.

Sincerely,

Mike Hopaluk

Elementary Principal

Dear Parents,

As we start a new semester in the 2021/22 academic year, I believe it is important to honour your support and partnership in bring our students half way through yet another challenging year. This year has had some return to normalcy but it has been far from easy for us all. Your resilience and understanding as we navigate this school year has been noticed and appreciated. We have all grown more tough and adaptable as we continue to work to support our children towards continued growth and success.

In the week ahead, we will be having our Parent Teacher Conferences. This is a key time for reflection and setting new directions for the second semester. It is important to take this time for us to continue our ongoing partnership in support of our students. Moving forward, we at school will be working to focus our students with the following strategies:

• specific praise instead or general words like ‘good’,

• discussing next steps with students to help them grow more proactive in working toward their own success and

• balanced feedback through highlighting strengths along with needs for improvement.

Please feel free to use any of these strategies at home with your child as well. Alignment between home and school in these strategies will help students to have clarity on our shared goal to move them forward.

John O'Neill

Elementary VP (Grades 3, 4, 5)

Although we have had the disruption of switching to and from Distance Learning, over the last few months, 5B have been moving along with our educations like champions. Currently, we are discovering about some very interesting topics. Our current Unit of Inquiry is all about Matter. We are researching about states of matter and how matter changes in our world. This unit began with an exciting demonstration on how when we add salt to ice, the temperature lowers well below zero degrees, allowing us to make ICE CREAM in a bag! Even though we couldn’t do what we all wanted to do, which was dive right in and share our ice cream, COVID protocols would not allow that, so the students were challenged to make their own ice cream in a demonstration at home. Our current unit of study in literacy has allowed us to put away our logical minds and explore the topic of Fantasy! This is a much-needed break from the realities of our current world. We are currently working on the elements that make a story fit into the fantasy genre and will be creating our own fantasy writing piece. This is all along studying an incredible book called The Thief of Always.

As we work on our final units, we will be moving toward choosing a topic for our PYP Exhibition project, that will showcase all of the things we have learned throughout our Primary Years Program. This task will be an 8-week process that will show off our researching skills and our ability to create a final project that is both innovative and can make the world a little bit better. Keep an eye out for notice of our Exhibition dates!

On the occasion of International Mother Tongue Day of February 21, GAA celebrated the diversity of languages. Our students covered PYP library wall with messages in their mother tongue.

Did you know our PYP Library has an international section with books in 20 different languages?

Click the link below for some pictures!

Tuesday 22 February 2022 is being called a 2s Day!

The date is noted for its palindromic pattern as it reads the same forwards as it does backwards, but also as it falls on a Tuesday.

Our KG Students and Grade 2 students celebrated it by checking out "twin" books with a friend, making 2s glasses and crowns. Here are some fun photos!

Thank you Elementary Student Government, which is comprised of students in Grades 4 and 5, for coming up with such a fun Dress Down Day theme!

GAA Parent Association would like to thank students and parents for the Dress Down Day donations, which will go towards supporting our students and school Community in general. Previous donations of this 2021-2022 school year:

• Fruits for Middle and High School Sports Days,

• Medals for Readathon Winners,

• Treats for UAE National Day door contest winners in Elementary, Middle and High School

• Seniors Coffee Cart

• Teachers Coffee Cart

• Red Crescent during Pink October

• Lunch for "Annie" cast and crew for the recording day

GAA Parent Association has been supporting our School Community since 2009 and will continue to do so thanks to the efforts of all our parents.

• February 28-March 1: Parent-Teacher Conferences - NO SCHOOL

• March 7: Stu Williamson Absentee Photosession

• March 24-25: Elementary Musical "School of Rock, Jr." Virtual Production

• March 28-April 12: Spring Break - NO SCHOOL