Message from the Principal Well so far 2020 has been unprecedented in many ways! With what looks like potentially another weather day tomorrow we will have missed upwards of eight school days. This has been unheard of in St. John’s however there is no need to panic as it is fairly common outside of the Metro Area where they can miss upwards of 10 to 15 days a year. Please be assured teachers are looking at ways to compact the curriculum while still being assured all Key Curriculum Outcomes will be covered. Report cards will be sent home on Friday, February 21st and Parent Teacher Interviews will be on February 27th. This time of year we stamp report cards with Distinction (70-79% average), Honours (80 - 89%) and Principal’s List (90 and above). We also recognize exceptional attendance and volunteerism. POST SECONDARY MUN Applications due by March 1. Complete the application on-line at www.mun.ca. If you want to be considered for early entrance scholarship offers, your application must be received at MUN by March 1. MUN scholarship information is available at: https://www.mun.ca/scholarships/scholarships/entrancestudents/nl/ Students who have applied to MUN are reminded that a copy of their February Progress Report needs to be emailed to MUN at admiss.docs@mun.ca MUN Information Sessions for students/families are scheduled for Monday, February 10 & Tuesday, February 11, 6:30pm, Bruneau Centre, St. John’s Campus. For more information, go to https://www.mun.ca/undergrad/events/domestic-prospective.php or contact Garrett Melee at gmelee@mun.ca

CNA (College of the North Atlantic) applications are accepted on a first-come, first served basis. Applications for September 2019 programs can be submitted anytime during your graduating year. Many programs have waitlists and students are encouraged to get their applications in asap. Apply on-line at www.cna.nl.ca Marine Institute (MI) applications are due April 15. There are numerous programs available. Check the MI Academic Calendar to be sure you meet all of the Admission Requirements and Physical Requirements for your program before you apply. Call 1-800-563-5799 or email admissions@mi.mun.ca. Applications are available on-line at www.mi.mun.ca. Private Training Institutions and out-of-province schools - Submission dates vary. Contact the respective school for programs and deadlines. Nursing Admission Questions? For this year only, the deadline for Nursing program applications has been extended to February 8, 2020. Contact the Nursing Consortium Office at: nursingadmissions@mun.ca; 709.777.6577, 709.777.7039 or go to https://www.mun.ca/undergrad/programs/nursing Scholarships Information about Scholarships is available from the Guidance Scholarships and Enrichment Programs Google Classroom. Classroom code is b40cyf. Contact Ms. Kirkland of Ms. Jackson for more information. Check out the recent posts about the Harrison McCain Scholarship, as well as comprehensive career decision-making/planning information and scholarships available through the RBC Future Launch initiative. Midterm Exam Destressor Week 2020 - WVH’s Student Mental Health Awareness Committee organized and ran a very successful Midterm Exam Destressor Week, From Jan 27-31, 2000. The time leading up to exams can be stressful for many students, and the Mental Health Awareness Committee wanted to do their part to help students prepare for upcoming exams. Activities included: Coloring & Candy, Board Games/Bingo, Mindfulness Session, Therapy Dogs, Groovy Cafe, and a Do-Nut worry session. The committee also created a bulletin board of motivational sayings, cartoons and tips and strategies to help fellow students do their best.

Canadian School Counselling Week

February 3-7, 2020 marks the 6th annual Canadian School Counselling Week in which we recognize and appreciate the school counselling profession. School counsellors provide support to students struggling with mental health issues and serve as an essential part of their academic journey.

School Development Surveys The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development’s 2019-20 School Development Surveys will be available online beginning Monday, February 10th. All surveys are to be completed by Friday, March 20th. This survey gives parents/guardians an opportunity to provide feedback to the administrators of their child’s school on topics that are important for school development. The primary purpose of the survey is to support the school development process. The survey results will be provided to your child’s school and used with other data in the school development process to identify the school’s strengths and challenges. Schools will then create and implement a plan to build on successes and address areas of challenge. The survey data is most useful when it is understood within the context of the local school.

Teacher / Staff Appreciation Week (TSAW) was initiated by the Canadian Home and School Federation in 1988. The purpose of this week is to encourage parents and the wider community to recognize the personal and professional contributions that our teachers and school staff make to children and their education. Every school has dedicated staff members. TSAW lets them know they are appreciated and that parents

want to work with them on the same team! http://www.canadianhomeandschoolfederation.ca/tsaw.html

Upcoming Course Selection Process Grade 9 Students Course selection process will be starting the week of March 2nd with our Grade 9 students and St. John Bosco and Beaconsfield Junior High. Staff from WVH will visit both schools on Monday, March 9th to give presentations and hand out course selection sheets. On Thursday, March 5th we welcome Grade 9 Parents and Students to Waterford Valley for a Q&A session in our Cafeteria. For more information on transitioning to High School please see the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development’s publication On Course Handbook - 12th Edition at the following link. https://www.gov.nl.ca/eecd/publications/k12/ Grade 10 and 11 Students Course selection for our current Grade 10 and 11 students will be the following week and will get started with Grade Level meetings on March 9th. Finalized sheets will be due March 13th.

Welcome to our MUN Teaching Interns! Please join us in welcoming our teaching interns from Memorial University! We feel it is so important to help foster and mentor the next generation of teachers and certainly appreciate having them join our staff. Their names are below:

1. Ms. Breanna Cook Math/Biology with Ms. Taylor and Mr. Street 2. Mr. Evan Maddick English/History with Ms. Campbell and Ms. Tucker 3. Mr. Johnathan Parkinson Phys. Ed/Geog with Ms. Gibbons and Mr. Riche 4. Ms. Rachel Petten - Phys. Ed/Biology with Mr. Newhook 5. Mr. Jarrett Squibb - Tech/Math with Mr. Flynn and Mr. Hartery

Drama Class Produces Commercials! Mr. Jody Rideout just completed his unit on commercials. For this project students had to storyboard, write scripts, act, and edit their productions. Check it out! Cheat Juice https://drive.google.com/open?id=1XCtfvhndl0Qo6dYbZfbzhWzXYJHbcPEZ The Multi-Sheet https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xAG_nvZ9PQiRgxf7JcY9eNMXB5ioIBcf Minty Fresh https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qSxA5ay4tyXmswZ6ap7sEI8nydWuU2OJ The Egg Phone https://drive.google.com/open?id=1VPtKLhq5IgZDBpCZw0hW1eFMsYSwWLPY The Banana Phone https://drive.google.com/open?id=1R3TJ83-jxYsK-_6sWZ4T04tYhn9kgpp_

Attention Graduates! Graduate Photos have been rescheduled to the week of March 30th to April 3rd. Don’t forget there is a sitting fee of $25 due. Appointments times will be posted the week before in the main lobby.

Congrats to Lauren Dibbon Lauren is 1 of 30 selected from 900 applicants across Canada. She spends 10 days on a tour of Panama (March) and a week in Ottawa (May) meeting with Senators, MPs and community leaders to perfect her idea. Her idea is to implement a textile upcycling fair in her community to reduce global textile waste. She was also just selected to attend the Canada We Want Youth conference in March! https://www.studentscommission.ca/en/events?fbclid=IwAR2_memwxaEksrJLfMFqJsBlBZ9OZkkOVyNrBzwHx-KXjiu-JNFqVaK-jpQ

Happy Retirement to Ms. Michelle Hounsell

Happy Retirement to our Learning Commons Teacher Ms. Michelle Hounsell! Ms. Hounsell, otherwise known as “The Lady of the Commons” will finish her over 30-year career on Friday, January 31, 2020. Ms. Hounsell started her career doing an internship and substituting at Holy Spirit High and then went on to work at Beaconsfield High where she taught Science and Math for 10 years. In 1999, Ms. Hounsell moved to Booth Memorial High School where she taught Math and the work co-op program, Future Pathways

and Career Development. It wasn’t until 2008 that she moved into Learning Resources at Booth Memorial and remained in that position until the school closed in June 2015. It was at that time that Ms. Hounsell took on the challenge to design Waterford Valley High’s Learning Commons and from her vision and early sketches she has created a masterpiece! If you haven’t seen our Commons it is a learning space that is one of the most beautiful, inspiring and resourceful in the province! Ms. Hounsell has also led our hugely successful Christmas in the Valley Craft Fair for the past four years and took the lead for organizing WVH Chapter’s Night! Recently she has helped update our staff room to make it an enjoyable space where teachers can have a few minutes to de-stress between classes.

Michelle Hounsell will certainly be leaving a legacy at WVH and will be greatly missed. If anyone ever needed any advice on resources, technology, taste, style or etiquette it was Ms. Hounsell you turned to.

The whole WVH Community wishes you many long years of retirement to enjoy with your husband Tom (who has been retired for several years now!) sons Nicholas, Mark, Kieran and their beautiful Golden Lab, Rhonan.

WVH’s Kitchen Brigade - Soup’s On! On January 13, our WVH Kitchen Brigade dedicated their time and cooking workshop budget to give back to the community. 248 soup packages in total were put together in an assembly line fashion and presented to Chantelle Bennett, Resource Development Coordinator of the Boys and Girls Clubs of St. John’s. Each package contains the dry ingredients and spices needed to make a flavorful pea and barley soup which can stand alone or to which a variety of vegetables can be added. The Boys and Girls Clubs of St. John’s serve 750 children and youth annually, ages 5-17 , at two club locations- Buckmaster’s Circle and Mundy Pond. They offer a variety of services each week to children and youth that can make use of these soup packages including a Warm Bellies Program and Project Backpack. Both of these programs aim to help with the food insecurity that many families face on a daily basis. The Warm Bellies Program is a supper program offered to members each week at the Buckmaster’s Circle Location, to ensure that they get a hot meal every week. Project Backpack provides families with food and snacks during times when they are unable to avail of other necessary programs, like school breakfast/lunch programs or our After School Snack Program. Each Friday, families get to bring home snacks and meals for every child in their household. A new program starting this month called Cook It Up is meant to not only feed a family , but have them in the kitchen together, preparing a meal to enjoy. The boys and Girls club will be able to provide vegetables to add to the packages in this program to create a variety of different soups! The WVH Kitchen Brigade is an after-school cooking program of La Tablee des Chefs (https://www.tableedeschefs.org) coordinated by nutrition teacher Ms. Saunders and Chef Andrews. Dedicated students meet on Mondays after school in the Nutrition Lab along with Ms. Donahue and Ms. Simon who provide teacher support. This program provides an opportunity for students with a genuine interest in cooking to develop personal culinary skills and autonomy in the kitchen while learning about healthy eating, their local community and how food connects us all.

Kitchen Brigade students who participated on January 13!

Ms. Smith, Simon and Donahue! 248 soup packages! Work in progress

Review of Travel Policy This district has updated some of their travel Policies. Check out the links below. Policy Link: Student Travel https://www.nlesd.ca/includes/files/policies/doc/1548691853706.pdf Policy Regulations: Student Travel https://www.nlesd.ca/includes/files/policies/doc/1548789427980.pdf

Ski Trip to White Hills Mr. Marmouche is planning a Ski Trip to White Hills. The date has been changed to Wednesday, Feb. 19th. Forms can be picked up from Mr. Marmouche in room 323. The cost of this excursion is $70 and can be paid at the main office.

Student Field Trips Pictured Below: Ms. Smeaton’s students visit The Rooms and Ms. Simon’s and Ms. Donahue’s students visit Marjory Mews Center!

Kids Eat Smart

Our school is participating in a Breakfast Blitz, to help fill our KES Cupboards, on Thursday, February 27, 2020. We are asking you to please send along a breakfast item or a donation to support our school’s Kids Eat Smart Breakfast Club. If you wish, you may make your donation online at www.kidseatsmart.ca and designate our school to receive your gift. Remember $20 is breakfast for a child for one month! It’s important that we fill our KES cupboards to ensure our children start their days well nourished and ready to learn.

MUSIC@WVH Our Music Department had an exciting December! We held a marvelous Winter Showcase which featured all aspects of our Fine Arts Department. We also held a Concert Matinee and were so pleased to have students from Hazelwood Elementary and St. Teresa’s Elementary join us in the audience. Our Concert Choir also had the pleasure of performing at Ian Foster and Nancy Hynes’ Christmas Concert as well as at the WVH Graduation Ceremony. Both of these were absolutely lovely. We also sang at not one but TWO hotels this season and were rewarded with terrific lunches! Our Applied Music 3206 class also completed the CBC Best Music Class Challenge. You can see our entry here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjY7aQf7p4I Two of our guitarists, Lester and Leslie Wai even got a national shout out from CBC for their guitar skills!

This class also did a concert for our friends in Ms. Donahue and Ms. Simon’s classes. The show featured live versions of our PN students’ favorite songs.

We have many exciting things coming up this semester too so stay tuned!

4th Annual Danny King Winter Tribute Rugby Game WVH Teacher, coach, mentor and friend Mr. Danny King passed away suddenly on January 17th, 2016. Students at Waterford Valley High have organized a very fitting means to remember DK by having an outside Winter Rugby Match. This year Grade 12 student Alyssa Jenkins took the lead in organizing the event. First we were going to have it on January 17th however due to “Snowmaggedon” it got postponed a number of times. Finally, Wednesday, January 29th students were able to gather out on the rugby pitch in knee deep snow and have a scrimmage at lunch

time. Students had a grand time and CBC and VOCM showed up to give special interviews. Special thanks to the Swiler’s Rugby Club for the help and support again this year.