Safe and Caring Schools

The Safe and Caring Schools Committee are involved in programming and initiatives within our school directed toward enhancing the positive behavioural, social and emotional development of our students. This year the team is focused on promoting positive and respectful behaviours at school. They are working hard to establish a set of school wide expectations.

Members:

Melanie White	Lauren MacDonald
Kelli McCarthy	Susan Bieger
Pauline Pineau	Roger Deveaux
Susan Finn

Technology Committee

The Technology Committee is actively involved in promoting the effective use of technology throughout the school. The committee has been working hard this year by updated our computer lab with 25 computers and also providing each teacher with a computer. We are also providing an in-service on specific areas of technology interest specified by teachers through the technology survey.

Members:

Debbie Smith	Florence Norris
Jill Currie	Sara Moody
Lauren MacDonald

School Development

School development is a school level planning process designed to guide and focus a school towards the achievement of its mission - enhanced student learning. This year the School Development Team is involved in analyzing school data, setting goals and implementing action plans to address these goals. Once our goals have been finalized and approved by the School District and School Council they will be available to the school community.

Members:

Susan Beiger	Roger Deveaux
Debbie Smith	Florence Norris
Sharon Sharpe	Madonna Shea

Parent Volunteer Committee

There are a number of parent volunteers at Topsail Elementary who devote their time to our Parent Volunteer Committee. The focus of this committee is to assist the staff of Topsail Elementary with many tasks such as; photocopying, laminating, and preparing overheads and any materials needed for instructional purposes. Topsail Elementary is very fortunate to have such talented and interested parents.

Teacher Representatives:

Debbie Walters	Cheryl Trask
Iris Mackey

Math Committee

The math committee is a branch of the school development team. The goal of the committee is to help implement the objectives under the school goal of improving students learning and understanding in mathematics.

The math committee encourages frequent teacher-parent communication regarding Math outcomes that are being covered in class. Such communication could include Math homework, problem solving folders, unit outlines, teacher newsletters, and individual parent teacher conferences.

Some of the objectives the committee will be coordinating to meet the school  goal of improving teaching and learning in the area of Mathematics at Topsail Elementary are:

• A Problem of the Week & Riddle to be posted every week to encourage students to use their problem solving skills to independently solve both routine and non-routine problems.
• Re-distribute manipulatives to ensure teachers time on task in maximized to teaching
• Patterns of strengths and needs revealed by the annual Provincial Assessment results in the area of Mathematics
• For the committee to facilitate the sharing of best practices among teachers
• To coordinate the utilization of the district  Itinerant for Mathematics

Members:

Kelli McCarthy	Krista Hiller
Tena Fowler	Rhonda Hoddinott
Nancy Mercer	Roger Deveaux