Principal's Message May 27-31st
This Week at Lord Tweedsmuir
Thursday May 30th, 2024
Good morning students, staff, parents/guardians, friends of the Lord Tweedsmuir Secondary community!
As I often note, the school year moves by very quickly. As we approach the end of the week, there will only be 15 school days remaining in the term. There is much to accomplish over the short time ahead. All of our students and staff are working very hard and engaged in their learning. Students – stay focussed, finish strong, enjoy this special time in the school year. You are very fortunate to belong to the Panther community!
We celebrated with our Graduating class over the weekend. On Saturday afternoon, we hosted a meet and greet and photo op for graduates and their families. The weather cleared, the sun came out, and we enjoyed a chance to gather in celebration of our class of 2024. Our students looked amazing as they arrived for photos on the red carpet!
After a security check, students then boarded the busses and travelled to the Newlands Golf and Country club for their Dinner-Dance. Newlands is a beautiful venue. The food was delicious, the speeches were memorable, and the music/dance was enjoyed. Our students were excellent ambassadors of our school and celebrated their achievements and friendships together with pride and responsibility.
Our parent committee hosted our Dry Grad celebration after the Dinner Dance at the Rec Room in Burnaby. Students were bussed from Newlands to the Brentwood Mall for an all night/morning, all inclusive, event with unlimited games, food, prizes and fun! Over half of the graduating class joined us for this important tradition. Great thanks to all of the parents who helped plan and host this year’s Dry Grad. The Rec Room was also a wonderful venue and provided entertainment for our students in a fun, safe and supervised setting. After Dry Grad, and a very long evening, our students were then bussed back to the school. Thank you to parents for your patience and understanding with our busses for the return trip home. In the end, a great time was had by all! 😊 Again, thank you to all students, staff and parents for your support and assistance in making this celebration possible for our grads.
This week started with a Professional Development Day on Monday and a chance for our staff to continue to focus on their curriculum and pedagogy. These are very important days for a school’s staff and allow us to be responsive to the ever-changing educational landscape. I hope all staff enjoyed a meaningful day of dialogue, new ideas and reflection.
On Tuesday, we met for our monthly staff meeting. We had the chance to meet our new, incoming Vice Principal Mr. Lee. Welcome to the Lord Tweedsmuir family! We are looking forward to Mr. Lee joining our team, and we wish Mr. Kirincic all the very best as he moves to the Principalship at Sullivan Heights Secondary school. Congratulations Mr. Kirincic and thank you very much for your compassionate leadership over the past year and a half at LTSS. We know that Sullivan Heights Secondary will be very fortunate to have you guide and support their community in the years ahead.
On Wednesday morning, the District’s Traffic Consultants joined us to observe our morning school “traffic jam”. We are looking forward to hearing their recommendations for any possible supports to our very congested streets and parking lots. Unfortunately, the local road and water system improvement projects are adding to our challenging traffic conditions. Thank you to all students who are walking and/or riding to school, and to parents/guardians who are dropping off and picking up your children a few blocks away from the school.
PHE students were warming up and improving their cardiovascular fitness this week with stair repeats. Great work Panthers… I was impressed with your fitness.
On Thursday, we hosted our annual Humanities Fun Cup for our Grade 8 students. Our grade 8’s competed in a variety of fun team building games. Great school spirit! Thank you to Ms. Smith for your leadership in coordinating this special event.
Also on Thursday, we will be hosting a new event for our students. Our South Asian Students and Allies club, along with Student Council, will be hosting the first All-Star Basketball game. The event promises to be a fun opportunity for students to cheer on their team, raise money for a worthy charity and show their school spirit!
Our Girls Rugby Team has had a very successful playoff run. We are so proud of the sportsmanship, talent and grit of our rugby players and we wish the team the very best in their final games of the season.
On Wednesday, in miserable, rainy conditions our team held the #1 seed (and presumptive future champions) Gleneagle to zero points for most of the 2nd half. Gleneagle turned it around but our team should be proud and represented Tweedsmuir very well. Today the team faces Mouat in the Fraser Valley consolation round. Way to go Panthers!
Tomorrow, we are hosting another Grade 7 tour. We will be welcoming AJ McLellan Elementary students to our school for another morning of orientation, tours, lock tutorials and team building games. As always, this will be supported by our super Leadership students.
The school district has now approved our Extended Bell Schedule for the 24/25 school year. We have added a 5th block to the end of our day, with our 8:00am start time remaining the same. Period change time will also continue to be 5 minutes and the lunch break will continue to be 45 minutes. In addition, we will continue with our lengthened 2nd block in the morning. Please note that Blocks A and E will be fixed each morning and afternoon and Blocks B, C and D will rotate. Lastly, we will schedule 7 “Flex” days with an earlier dismissal time. Please see Flex Day schedule for times/days below.
Please note that those Senior students with a 5th period class will also have a block with no class scheduled in their timetable in the school day.
I hope your week has been excellent! Enjoy your Friday, have a restful weekend and we will see you back at school on Monday for our final “June push”!
All the best,
Ken
Traffic Safety
Traffic safety around Lord Tweedsmuir Secondary is a critical priority for our community. With increased enrollment, the number of vehicles navigating around and within our school grounds also increases. It is essential that all drivers are very cautious while driving near the school and are aware of the many student pedestrians who are nearby.
All students and parents/guardians are requested to consider the following:
- If possible, students - please walk and/or bike to school. Fewer vehicles attempting to drop off and/or pick up students will be very helpful.
- Consider dropping off/picking up 2-3 blocks away from the school and avoid the traffic congestion around the school.
- Consider drop-off/pick up earlier and/or later in the morning/afternoons to avoid peak traffic times.
Thank you for your help in protecting the safety of our students.
