October 11, 2024
Coming Up
Fire Drill Rescheduled
The fire drill scheduled for October 7 has been rescheduled to October 30 at 12 noon. The revised schedule now includes the following three dates and times for fire drills for the fall term:
October 22 at 2:40 p.m. (Block J)
October 30 at 12 noon (Block B)
November 20 at 1:30 p.m. (Block G)
These events are all in the UTS Staff Calendar.
Importance of Accurate Attendance Records
To collectively ensure the safety of all students, please ensure class attendance is submitted within the first 10 minutes of class and that is it accurate as of the moment of submission. If a student arrives after the attendance has been submitted, please either send the student to the Main Office to get a late slip or record the late arrival in your attendance immediately.
The Main Office has called home on several occasions when a student who arrived late was marked absent on the attendance record. In such instances, families have been alarmed. We understand that students arriving late is disruptive. We are following up with families when a student has a pattern of arriving late for class.
Flu Shot/COVID Vaccination Clinic
There has been a lot of interest thus far and thank you for signing up. Below is a reminder for folks who may be considering getting their flu shot and/or their COVID vaccination. Date of the clinic is to be determined, but we are anticipating it to be early November.
UTS has partnered with the local Shoppers Drug Mart to offer a Flu Shot/COVID booster clinic to all staff. The clinic will be held in early November at UTS once the flu shots and the updated COVID vaccines are available.
You can choose to get both vaccinations or just one. The clinic will be run by Andrew who is the pharmacist at Shoppers Drug Mart. Please indicate your interest here.
If you have any questions, reach out to Adi Sood.
Staff Social Committee Event
The Staff Social Committee invites all staff to The Maddie (14 Madison Ave) after work on October 25.
Come by and share some laughs with your awesome colleagues. Snacks will be provided. We hope to see you there!
School Building Closing Time and Supervision
Please remember that any students not involved in a supervised curricular or co-curricular activity after school must wait in full view of our security guard on the learning stairs. Additionally, if you are overseeing any activity, please ensure that students either leave the building safely or are directed to the learning stairs once the activity concludes. Please never leave students unsupervised in classrooms for any activity or co-curricular. Our security team begins their sweeps of the building around 4:45 p.m, and the school will close at 5 p.m, except during special evening or athletic events.
TEDx
Do you have a great idea for a 12-minute talk, on some engaging, wonderful topic? If so, the UTS TEDxYouth team wants to hear from you! We are looking for submissions for talk ideas from our lovely (and entertaining) staff. The event is happening after school, November 13 in the Withrow Auditorium, with an audience of 100 lucky community members. We have a line up of student speakers but we wanted to invite UTS staff to participate. We would love to hear your ideas. Please send your proposed talk topic to racook@utschcools.ca.
Here is the guidance we received from TED regarding a successful topic:
“A great, well-formed idea can be one of two things: it can be something that’s new and surprising; an idea or invention that your audience has never heard about, or it can be a great basic idea (that your audience has maybe already heard) with a compelling new argument behind it that challenges beliefs and perspectives. An idea isn’t just a story, a list of facts, or a general overview of a topic - a good idea takes certain evidence or observations and draws a larger conclusion.”
CAIS School Innovation Grant
CAIS held a town hall on Tuesday to share more details about their School Innovation Grant program. Please see their list of key dates for the 2024-25 school year. The deadline to apply is November 3. The grant also comes with research mentorship support from previous grant winners. Please reach out to Kim MacKinnon if you are interested in applying and would like some support through our Eureka office.
M4 Classes During the Washington Trip
M4 students will be in Washington from Tuesday, October 15 to Saturday, October 19
Teachers who will be on the trip are kindly requested to submit their coverage needs by today. Please do not indicate you need coverage if you have a class of M4s who will all be going on the trip.
Teachers who have M4 classes and are not on the trip will be on standby coverage. Please be sure to be available during your standby coverage. We will do our best to ensure teachers know their coverage assignments prior to the periods they are needed.
Teachers who teach classes that have a mix of M4 students and a few students from other grades please either:
Let Jenny and the Main Office know you will be working with those students in your classroom while the M4s are away and we will not give you another coverage or
Provide the list of students to Rebecca Courtney and the Main Office and ask your students to sign in at the Main Office and then report to Ms. Courtney the library for a study period.
OISE Teacher Candidates (UTS Cohort)
Year 1 UTS Option teacher candidates will be on site on Thursdays.
They will be wearing lanyards to identify themselves (also see - photo deck).
Please let us know if it’s not a good day for a class visit using our observation sign up form.
Do feel free to get them involved and help with anything you might need extra hands for! Future dates: October 24, 31 | January 9, 16, 21, 30 | February 6.
Loophole Office Hours with Comms
Mornings of Wednesday, October 16 and Friday, October 18 in Room 256
Curious about when and how to communicate with parents/guardians? Not sure how to share exciting initiatives and results from your class/students/self? Let’s chat!
Emma in Comms has set aside the mornings of Wednesday, October 16 and Friday, October 18 to chat through questions you have that weren’t answered in yesterday’s staff meeting.
If these times don’t work for you, email communications@utschools.ca with a time that does. Thank you!
Vic Reach Program - Teachers Needed for Placements
UTS has been a partner with the University of Toronto Vic Reach Program, a volunteer academic outreach program offering University of Toronto students the opportunity to work with students at Toronto schools, for several years and we hope to continue the partnership.
Your generosity in providing the opportunity for Vic students to volunteer in your classroom is greatly appreciated.
We are looking for teachers who are willing to have volunteers in their classes (Time TBD but similar to previous years).
Please contact jpittlainsbury@utschools.ca if you think you could have a student volunteer with your class.
Vic Reach students could be the extra chaperone you were looking for!
New Grant Opportunity for Students: the Tony Lundy ’79 & Janet Looker Climate & Environment Solution Fund
This new fund established by UTS Board Director, Tony Lundy ’79, will provide funding for expenditures as approved by UTS for work undertaken by our students to develop climate change and environmental solutions. The Fund will be used to defray costs for students developing climate and environmental solutions. The amount of $5,000 is available for this school year.
These grant opportunities for students will be available in the fall, winter and spring and can support curricular or co-curricular projects and initiatives. Fall applications are due on October 21. Please share this opportunity with your students and student clubs you supervise. The application form can be found here. The next application opportunity will be in January.
Lunch Menu
UTS staff are welcome to order a hot lunch from the Mindful Munch. Please see the October menu and order form below.
The photos in this folder are from our joint Drama/Global Citizenship Project which took place last week.
With our partner school, Rysensteen Gymnasium in Copenhagen, we have been in collaboration since last June to build a joint drama workshop and scene study of the new Canadian play 1939 by Jani Lauzon and Kaitlyn Riordan. The story is set in 1939 in a fictional residential school in Canada. This continues a tradition of 6 workshops together over the past few years.
Beginning in the fall, my senior drama class and our partner class in Copenhagen began a joint study of the play, sharing lesson plans, ideas, and conversation online.
Here is the play: https://www.canadianstage.com/show/1939
Last week, when we got to meet in person for the first time, we used theatre tools to build connections during the initial part of the workshop. The goal was to use theatre tools and techniques to make a personal and meaningful connection among the two groups from different countries.
After that, in mixed groups with students from both schools collaborating, we presented a staged reading of scenes working with guest artist and lead actor from the play, Brefny Caribou. She shared historical and personal insights and guided us in exploring themes from the play.
About Brefny Caribou, our guest artist: https://tapa.ca/personnel/brefny-caribou/
The following day, the senior drama class and the group from Copenhagen went all together to attend a performance of the same play, see Brefny in her role and have a Q and A afterwards.
The experience was moving, memorable, and one of profound connection in spite of having only a short time to collaborate in person.
I hope to continue building more projects and to have the chance to do this engaging work together.
