December 10, 2023 

Dear PHS Families, 

This past Friday our staff engaged in closely examining Executive Functioning and how we can form a continuum of support to help students develop in this area.  Executive Functioning includes a set of skills that help students plan, organize and initiate tasks, as well as regulate their behaviour and monitor their progress to meet a goal. The areas of executive function that staff focused on during their professional learning day included: attention and focus, self-monitoring, and flexible thinking.  Our Occupational Therapist joined us to assist in supporting this work.    

Spirit Days and Activities 

As we move toward our winter break, we have several spirit days planned for staff and students: 

Caroling with our Choir 

• Tuesday, December 19 at 9:00am 
• Thursday, December 21 at 1:30pm 

Spirit Days:  

• Holiday Hats – December 13 and 20 
• Ugly Sweater/shirt day – December 15  
• PJ Day – December 22  

School Service-Learning Projects 

The Holiday Hope Tote with the Alex Centre has concluded. Thank you to everyone who contributed to this event.  We are proud to sponsor this organization, making the holiday season more pleasant for some of Calgary’s at-risk youth. The Mayor’s Food Drive will continue until Monday, December 18th. 

Student Cell Phones 

Some issues have come up with our students pertaining to cell phone usage during the school day. Phones are a great tool for home communication before and after school, particularly as older students take on more independence. We do ask, however, that phones be kept safely in backpacks for the duration of the school day. Should a child need to call home, school phones can be used. Our lunch and recess supervisors are there to ensure students are safe and it is very difficult to supervise cell phone usage at these times. It can be very dangerous for students to accidentally access inappropriate content and our priority is to ensure general safety. Monitoring cell phones is a distraction to our supervisors who are there to oversee the general well-being of our students. If your child has a phone at school, we appreciate home conversations around keeping these in backpacks for the day. Should your child require a phone for learning as a part of “Bring your own device,” please discuss this with your child’s teacher to see if this is something that is necessary.  

Sincerely, 

Ms. Paull and Ms. Muir 

Date	Event	Comment
November 15 – December 18	Mayors Food Drive	No glass containers please
December 13 and 20	School Spirit: Holiday hats!	Hats, Headbands … let’s have some fun (optional)!
December 14	Grades 2 and 3 Celebration of Learning	5:30 Students will arrive and head to the classrooms.  Parents can be seated in the gym  5:50 Students will enter the gym  6:00 Our evening presentation will begin
December 15	School Spirit: Ugly Sweater Day!	Don your craziest holiday attire (optional)!
December 19 and 21	Caroling Assemblies	Staff and Students
December 22	School Spirit: Last Day of School	Last Day of School before the break  Wear your comfy PJs (optional)! We will have some special activities happening on this day.