Address:
2080 Portobello Boulevard
Orleans, Ontario
K4A 0K5
Phone: 613-834-7313
Fax: 613-834-5274
School Hours:
8:00 a.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Office Hours:
7:50 a.m. - 2:15 p.m.
School Website
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Principal
Sandra R. Stewart
Vice Principal
Keri Coulson
Office Administrator
Anne Berkley
Chief Custodian
Pierre Labrie
School Council Co-Chairs
Patricia Dodge
Ashton Singh
Superintendent of Instruction
Neil Yorke-Slader
School Trustee
John Shea
Chair of the Board
Jennifer McKenzie
Director of Education/
Secretary of the Board
Jennifer Adams
General Board Information:
Phone: 613-721-1820
OCDSB Website 2
Accessibility Information 3
Avalon Public School - “Where Legends Begin”
The Avalon school community celebrates 6 years of serving children and their families in Orleans! Avalon, an eastern school, located in the new community of Avalon, opened its doors to students in September 2008. The neighbourhood is bounded by Innes Road, Tenth Line and Trim Road. It is a community of mixed housing - single family homes, townhomes and loft dwellings. New housing construction in the Avalon neighbourhood means we will continue to grow. Avalon is situated in a lovely park-like setting, with a small forest at the back of the school and Portobello Park abutting the school property. While many students are bused to school, many other students are able to walk and bike to Avalon. Our school is a beautiful structure, designed by Barry Hobin and is wheelchair accessible with a small elevator to assist movement to the second floor. Students can access a high school sized gymnasium with a stage, an instrumental music room, a full intermediate science lab and a full intermediate art room. Our
Library is a large open space with a modest but growing collection of books. We have a large, two story foyer, with a raised stage which is used for special events. A daycare facility is attached to our school right beside the four Kindergarten classrooms. Our Design and Technology lab opened in 2011 and is situated in a double portable alongside our ten portable classrooms. More portables will be added in the summer of
2014 so that we can accommodate Full Day Kindergarten.
We opened our school with 460 students (2008), and this year, our population has grown to 785 students. We are expected to continue to grow rapidly over the next few years. Avalon serves students in grades Junior Kindergarten to grade 8. We offer programs in Regular English and in Early French Immersion.
Students with Special Education needs are integrated into classrooms and support teachers/educational assistants work in the classrooms to offer assistance. Our students come from diverse backgrounds and represent 49 nationalities, many religions and 18 languages. Some of our students are from military families and have lived and gone to school in many regions of Canada.
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This year we have 57 staff members: 44 teachers, 3 educational assistants, 5 custodians, 3 office staff, 1 Library
Technician, 1 Vice Principal and 1 Principal. Our staff members bring a rich variety of expertise and talent to our students. We have literacy experts, musicians, science and technology aficionados, special education experts and artists – just to list a few.
Our Avalon School Council first gathered in March 2008 before the school officially opened. The Council worked very hard to assist in naming the school, selecting a logo and a mascot, planning a June event for the families in preparation for the move, helping with the planning and implementation of the official opening and preparing the constitution and fundraising policy. It has been an immense undertaking! The Council established a
“Yummy Dejeuner” program for the students and hosted Medieval Fair in June 2009 to celebrate the conclusion of our first year. Now the Medieval Fair is an annual event and is growing in size. In 2009/10, the Council added Family Movie Nights where parents can bring young children to enjoy a movie in the Avalon gymnasium.
Each year the new School Council looks for ways to support our growing school.
Fundraising is used to support the needs identified by teachers and the Council has generously supported the purchase of library books, guided reading books, design and technology equipment, physical education equipment, manipulative materials for mathematics and science and many more resources.
We have received support in our community from parents and grandparents who volunteer in the school, reading and working with children in the classroom, helping with the big task of setting up our new Library, going on field trips and unpacking materials. OCRI volunteers and the Tutors in the Classroom program also provide additional supports to our students. Businesses in our community also support us – Avalon participates in the
Ottawa 67’s Adopt a School program which supplies students and their families with tickets to games, Sobey’s often donates edible needs for different events. In our 2012
Medieval Fair, our parents participated in Drive One 4 YR School with Jim Keay Ford and we earned $2026.00 for school resources. Paul Rushforth Real Estate and T.D.
Waterhouse always support our community fair too.
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Our Motto is “Where Legends Begin!”
Picture of Avalon Public School
Avalon offers Regular English programs and Early French Immersion for students in Junior
Kindergarten to grade 8. Kindergarten is currently offered in a half day format and we will move to Full Day Learning in Kindergarten in September 2014.
Avalon has 16 classes of children in the Regular English program from Junior Kindergarten to
Grade 8. We have 19 classes of children in Early French Immersion from Senior Kindergarten to
Grade 8. Some of our classes are straight grade classes and 8 of our classes are split-grade classes. Classes in Kindergarten to grade 3, plus grade 7 and 8, are housed within the school building. Classes in grade 3 to 6 are housed in portable classrooms.
Students with special education needs are included in our regular classrooms. We have 4 Special
Education teachers and 3 Educational Assistants who work with children in the regular classroom setting to provide support to all children. Sometimes small groups of children are withdrawn from classrooms for targeted interventions – this is a short term approach with a specific goal. Avalon students have diverse backgrounds and speak a wide variety of first languages. We have a .5 ESL teacher to support English language development.
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Student Council for Intermediate
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Junior and Intermediate Instrumental Bands
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Beyond the Hurt Team
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The Forest of Reading
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Lunch Monitors and Milk Monitors
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Cross Country Run + Terry Fox Run
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Soccer, Volleyball, Football, Badminton, Basketball and other sports throughout the year, both competitive and intramural varieties
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Primary Choir
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Homework support for students in Intermediate
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Knitting Club for Primary children
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Design and Technology Club
Avalon has an active Safe and Caring committee which meets monthly and looks at a wide variety of safe school’s needs – everything from lockdown and fire drill practices to planning anti bullying assemblies and classroom activities. One member of our committee acts as a liaison with the central OCDSB committee and shares information with everyone. Plans are shared with our
School Council.
Avalon is a Tribes school and we believe in the Tribes agreements: Mutual Respect, Attentive
Listening, the Right to Pass/Participate and No Putdowns. Avalon supports the OCDSB
“Community of Character” values and these traits are interwoven into classroom learning across the curriculum. For our opening in 2008, we created 10 shields which hang in our foyer. Each shield highlights a character trait and our shields are signed by all of our students, staff and our
School Council.
Each school year, we begin with safety assemblies for our students in grades 1 to 8. Teachers reinforce our expectations in the classrooms, hallways and on the school yard. Annually we collect data about student safety from our students through an online survey called “Tell Them from Me”.
We use this data to help us make improvements in our supervision practices, in our teaching of values and expectations and in helping our students have healthy relationships. One outcome of this information is an initiative called “Beyond the Hurt” – a youth leadership program created by the Canadian Red Cross. Beyond the Hurt develops a team of grade 7 leaders who motivate, educate and inspire their peers and younger students to recognize and oppose bullying behaviour.
The team presents workshops in Junior and Intermediate classrooms where they use their influence and knowledge to help all students see the debilitating effects of bullying, the power of the bystander to stop it and the need for all of us to take a stand. As well, l ast year’s student team took our school Code of Conduct and developed three Codes: Primary, Junior and Intermediate.
These are becoming posters for our classrooms and hallways.
This November, we joined all schools in Ontario to stand up against bullying. For the month we focused on being a “Bucket-filling” school, where we accentuated how positive words and acts full us up emotionally. Literature, discussions, and artwork supported this focus. Also, in November, our Intermediate division joined with other students from across Ottawa to en joy the Ottawa 67’s
“Rogers Character School Day Game”. In January we will be inspired in an anti-bullying assembly led by Anthony McLean.
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Avalon Public School is a beautiful two-story building, designed by Barry Hobin. We opened our doors to children in September 2008. Students have access to a high school sized gymnasium (with a full stage, servery, and change rooms), an intermediate science lab, an intermediate art room and an instrumental music room. We have a large and airy
Library with a modest but growing collection of books. Our four Kindergarten classrooms are complete with cubbies and child-sized washrooms. Our Kindergarten children play in a fenced play yard with a climber. Our 24 classrooms are bright with natural light and come with a classroom computer, a television and DVD player. Ten portable classrooms are filled with students and we have a double portable which houses a Design and Technology program. (In 2014, we will add more portables to accommodate Full Day Kindergarten within the building.) We also have a laptop lab on wheels, which can be shared by all classes and can access our wireless environment. Our school yard has a basketball court, a shaded area and a climbing structure. Our soccer field opened in September 2009. Our property abuts Portobello Park and our students use the park for physical education and extra-curricular sports.
Google Map of Avalon Public School
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Staff at Avalon use ongoing assessment to inform teaching and learning. Some of our assessments and evaluations include:
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PM Benchmarks, GB+, CASI, and EQAO results
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Daily teacher observation, student daily assignments, unit pre-tests and quizzes
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Teacher feedback is key and a focus for our School Improvement Plan
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Student self and peer evaluation (rubrics)
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Formal educational assessments conducted by our Learning Support Teacher
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Each student has an assessment folder which houses work samples and is moved to the following teacher to help for planning
Our School Improvement Plan for 2013/14 is anchored in a belief statement and a learning focus:
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We believe students understand themselves as learners when they “develop the capacity to be independent, autonomous learners who are able to set goals, monitor their progress, determine next steps, and reflect on their thinking.” (Growing Success, p. 28)
2. Learning Focus: Student learning through problem-solving – “students will develop, select, and apply problem-solving strategies as they pose and solve problems and conduct investigations, to help deepen their thinking” across the curriculum
(Mathematics Curriculum document, p. 87)
We have a School Improvement Planning team, which is made up of our division leaders, to lead our initiatives and we use time at Professional Activity Days (with all staff) to look at student data and student work. Our teachers moderate student work together - this helps us to identify trends in student thinking and student needs. Features of our plan include:
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Three Part Mathematics instruction
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Four Step Problem-solving Model and student checklist
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Use of exemplars
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Tasks that accommodate for different abilities
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Purposeful and timely feedback to push thinking
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Opportunities for students to work collaboratively and gain effective team work skills
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Ability for students to select and apply appropriate problem-solving strategies
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Relate one problem to similar problems
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Explain the thinking process employed
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Use innovative and creative approaches that result in innovative and creative solutions
One of our teachers participated in a Junior Mathematics Initiative with other teachers in the OCDSB in 2011-12, through the Ministry of Education Literacy and Numeracy
Secretariat. We employed her leadership and this research-style model for all of our Junior teachers. The team is working in collaboration with this lead teacher to strengthen teaching and learning in Mathematics in our Junior classrooms. In November, the Junior team met to plan classroom lessons, then went together to classrooms to teach the lesson, observe the learning of the students during the lesson and collect the student work
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samples to analyze. The analysis led to the collaborative creation of a final task for the student to consolidate the learning of the concept. This process was very illuminating. We will continue to look for ways to sponsor collaborative work of our teachers to enrich the teaching and learning of our students.
SIPSA progress and plans are shared with our School Council. Our SIP is posted on our school web site and updates are reported in our school newsletter.
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“Leadership in the OCDSB is the demonstration of personal initiative to achieve a positive outcome.”
In our sixth year, Avalon students continue to participate in many leadership and community building opportunities. Intermediate students participate in a very dynamic and active Student Council.
This year’s council is working to improve school spirit and building stronger relationships between the divisions through many innovative spirit building activities (example: December’s challenge was to decorate classes with a theme and decorate the teacher too!). For the second year we have trained a team of grade 7 leaders in the Red Cross program, Beyond the Hurt, an initiative which looks to employ peer influence to enhance healthy relationships, build empathy and stand up against bullying.
Each year our students collect non-perishable food for the Gloucester Food Cupboard.
Our students respond to world crisis situations: in November we collected coins for the crisis in the Philippines. Also, students act as Lunch Monitors and Milk Monitors and help to host sports tournaments in our gym and in the nearby park. They participate in Tribes activities in every classroom, which develop leadership skills. We acknowledge the fine work of our students in newsletters, assemblies, conversations with groups and individuals and through the 67’s Adopt a School Program.
Our staff members are highly qualified in many areas: Special Education, Music, Science, Physical
Education, the Arts, Technology and more. Our team brings a wealth of talents and interests to school and these enhance the learning environment and opportunities of our children. Our staff members have continually demonstrated leadership. Here are some examples: teaming to plan and order resources for all grades and subjects, unpacking and sorting new resources, taking empty classrooms and creating wonderful learning spaces, working together to plan all of the processes for children (entry, exit, fire drills, emergency procedures, etc.), setting up the Literacy
Room and Numeracy Room, working together to plan extracurricular activities for children, working with School Council on school opening plans, working with children to prepare for the school opening, and above all, always demonstrating integrity, good humor and collegial support with one another! Staff Leadership is recognized in school newsletters, principal reports to School Council, individual notes of thank you, recognition in our weekly memo, etc. Recently, the creative leadership of Avalon Primary teachers was acknowledged in the OCD SB report: “Unleashing
Potential, Harnessing Possibilities”.
Our School Council came together in March 2008 before the school was complete. Council members have given generously of their time, energy and ideas to help get the school open on time and ready for children. The Council has advised the school in many areas such as our school name, logo, motto, opening ceremonies, resource planning, community events, setting up a hot lunch program for children and more. Our Council meets once per month on the third Monday of the month at 7:00 p.m. in our school Staff Room. Everyone is welcome! Due to the hard work and creativity of our Council we have a tradition of an annual Medieval Fair in May, two Family Movie
Nights in the gym and a Boston Pizza evening in October/November.
Over the past two years, our council has worked very diligently to address the overcrowding at our school. The executive has worked with our trustee, John Shea, to make presentations to the
School Board and to speak publicly on behalf of the needs of our community. We acknowledge the great work of our council through the school newsletter, through personal thank you and in reports
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at council meetings. Currently our council is working on fundraising to support our many resource needs.
Volunteers play a very necessary role in our school. Parent volunteers and community volunteers work in the Library, in classrooms and laminate class materials. School Council events could not happen without the support of volunteers. As well, we welcome student teachers from many faculties of education, social work students from Algonquin College and coop students from local high schools – they all help us enrich the lives of our students.
Avalon is a relatively new school and we continue to create and develop our community links. In May 2010, we enjoyed our first annual Multi- Cultural Pot Luck evening, where more than 500 children, parents, staff members and community members enjoyed a shared sit down meal and entertainment. We appreciate the many parent and grandparent volunteers who support our students. Volunteers from OCRI work in many classrooms to enhance student learning.
We thank the 67’s Adopt a School Program. Through this program we are able to acknowledge the good work of students with tickets to 67’s hockey games. Starbucks adopted our staff and has provided free urns of coffee for special days.
Party Mart provided a significant discount on the items we needed for our official opening.
Laporte’s Nursery donated a flowering cherry tree for our Opening ceremonies. Each year
Sobey’s donates many of the edible items we need for events like Grade 8 Graduation and
Family Movie Nights. This December Supperworks donated a Christmas meal for 8 to our school and was enjoyed by one of our families. We recognize this in our monthly newsletters and personal thank you letters to our supporters.
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URL References
1 http://avalonps.ocdsb.ca/
2 http://www.ocdsb.ca/
3 http://www.ocdsb.ca/ab-ocdsb/
4 http://www.eqao.com/
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