- This year’s open house will take place virtually, due to COVID -
by Sylene Argent
Photos submitted
Traditionally, Colchester North Public School, and other area elementary institutions, host open houses in February to welcome incoming kindergarteners, make them feel special, and get them excited to start school in the fall.
Current COVID-19 restrictions have prevented those in-person events, but that is not stopping schools from connecting with incoming kindergarteners, and their parents, at upcoming virtual events, and by recognizing the students with special lawn signs.
Because of the pandemic, incoming kindergarteners to Colchester North Public School will be able to meet with their teachers online during the Virtual Open House on Wednesday, February 17.
All staff members will prepare a video for the event, so the students can meet their soon-to-be teachers .If parents register beforehand, their youth will be able to participate in a virtual meeting with their teacher. Parents will also be able to ask questions of the teachers about the upcoming schoolyear.
“We are just trying to make the kids feel a little bit special,” Yvonne Petta, Principal at Colchester North Public School, said.
Petta explained that in past years, the new students would get the opportunity to meet their teachers in person, make a craft, have a snack, get their photograph taken, and receive a goodie bag, in addition to getting a tour of the school from a new, special friend from the grade eight class. She said the traditional Kindergarten Open House event is typically a great night for the incoming students.
“This time, they don’t get to. I feel bad,” she said.
Since the in-person events cannot happen this year, Petta said Colchester wanted to make sure the new kindergarten students still feel special and were excited to start school. So, Colchester North had signs made up for the young, soon-to-be students to put on their lawns, as a way to proclaim their excitement for the next big step in their little lives.
School reps are either dropping off the signs to parents of the incoming students, or parents are picking them up at the school. Some of the parents have sent pictures of their soon-to-be school-aged child to Colchester North.
“The families are saying to me, ‘they are so excited to go to school,’” Petta said. “They know that sign is for them.”
“It is just a little thing, but it is making them feel part of the school community and that was the goal this year,” Petta said, adding there are several other schools throughout the region that are having signs made up for their incoming young ones, as well.
Parents wanting to sign up their soon-to-be kindergarten student at Colchester North can register online at www.publicboard.ca.
Petta said her staff has done an amazing job this past year with the online learning for the current students. The kindergarten staff members have actually set up classrooms in their homes, she said. “Kudos to the staff for engaging the students and trying to make it as routine for them as possible.”
Comments