Principal’s Message

 

October was a wonderful month of learning, connection, and community spirit at Arrow Heights! Our students were busy growing their skills and showing leadership in so many ways — both in and out of the classroom.

In classrooms, our focus on numeracy continued to shine. Students explored how math connects to real life through problem-solving, games, and our Math Fair, where they had the chance to share their thinking and creativity. We encouraged students to see themselves as mathematicians — confident, curious, and ready to take on challenges.

Our PAC Pie Picnic was a perfect example of what makes A.H.E special — families, staff, and students coming together to celebrate and connect. The Book Fair was another highlight, fostering a love of reading while supporting our school library. Thank you to the volunteers who helped make it such a success! Thank you to our incredible PAC for organizing these events and for your ongoing support of school programs.

Our Goal Setting Conferences provided a meaningful opportunity for students to take ownership of their learning and for families and teachers to collaborate on next steps. We appreciated everyone’s thoughtful participation and engagement in these conversations.

We ended the month with our much-anticipated Halloween Parade and Haunted House, organized by our intermediate students. These events brought so much joy (and a few fun scares!) to our school community, and we were impressed by the creativity and school spirit shown by all.

It’s another busy and productive month coming up! Thanks to all AHE families for their caring and enthusiasm!

Mrs. Mair

School Goals 2025-2026

Each year, AHE staff spend time reflecting on the past school year — reviewing assessment data, student progress, and year-long observations — to guide our planning for the year ahead. This collaborative process helps us identify where students are thriving and where we can deepen our collective focus.

Our school goals continue to center around three key areas: Numeracy, Literacy, and Social-Emotional Learning. While our overarching goals often remain consistent from year to year, the focus of instruction within each area may shift based on what our students need most.

This year, staff have refined our teaching strategies and learning plans to build on last year’s successes and respond to current student needs. Through ongoing reflection, data-informed practice, and shared professional learning, we remain committed to helping every student grow as a thinker, communicator, and caring member of our community.

Communicating Student Learning

The goal of communicating student learning is to ensure that communication between home and school is effective and timely, so that:

• parents are well informed about their child’s progress and growth;
• parents are involved as supporters in a dialogue about their child’s progress and the best ways to support and improve learning; and
• students are provided with information that is meaningful to them and helps them to improve their own learning.
• students take ownership of their learning, with teachers as their facilitators, and parents/caregivers as their supporters.

A full parent guide to Communicating Student Learning will be sent out to families this month, prior to the first Written Learning Update which will be sent home to families during the week of December 8-12th.

C.A.R.E.S. CARDS

At AHE, CARES Cards recognize students who show Cooperation, Achievement, Respect, Enthusiasm, and Safety. Staff and student leaders hand out cards for positive actions, which are read on the announcements each week.

Our students also “Pay It Forward” by donating cards to local organizations. This year, they chose Community Connections and Revelstoke Search and Rescue, turning acts of kindness at school into a meaningful impact in the community.

Buddy Classes

At AHE, our buddy classes pair primary and intermediate students twice a month for special activities and buddy reading. These partnerships help younger students build confidence and skills, while older students develop leadership and mentorship abilities. Buddy time is a wonderful way for students across grade levels to connect, have fun, and support one another in our school community. This year we are focussing on using reading strategies to train our intermediate students as coaches during buddy reading. Our buddy classes are paired as follows:

Ms. Tedesco’s Kindergartens with Ms. Gadbois’ Grade 5

Ms. Butler/Mrs. McCulloch’s Kindergarten/Grade 1 with Mrs. Haworth’s Grade 4

Mrs. MacLeod’s Grade 1/2 with Ms. Hall’s Grade 6/7

Mrs. Vickers’ Grade 2 with Mrs. Gauer/ Mr.Cadegan’s Grade 6/7

Ms. Poirier’s Grade 3 with Mr. Gardiner’s Grade 6

School Garden

The garden at the front of AHE showcases plants that naturally occur in our area, providing a beautiful and educational green space for our school community. Recently, our Grade 2 class added 30 tulip bulbs under the maple tree, which will bring a vibrant splash of colour in the spring. We look forward to seeing the garden continue to grow and bloom, connecting students with nature right here at school! Thanks so much to our parent volunteers and hard working student gardeners for digging the holes,  moving the dirt and carefully planting our new plants.

Communication Board

You will notice the addition of a new Communication Board in the school garden at the front entrance of AHE. This board is full of symbols, and words specific to AHE that help students with limited verbal communication express their needs, wants and emotions. Boards such as this are used to support non-verbal, minimally verbal or non-english speaking students by allowing them to point to images to communicate with others, fostering inclusion and independence.

Remembrance Day

Our Remembrance Day Assembly will take place on November 7th at 10:45 a.m., and parents and community members are warmly invited to attend. Together, our school community will honour those who have served our country, as well as those who continue to work for peace around the world. We extend our gratitude to our Student Leadership team for their role in this year’s assembly and for making a donation on behalf of all students to ensure that everyone has a poppy to wear and that a wreath will be laid at the Cenotaph on November 11th. Please note that there will be no school on Tuesday, November 11th, in observance of Remembrance Day.

School Sports

Cross Country Running

Our Cross Country Running season was a huge success. Each school hosted a running race and AHE was well-represented! AHE’s team showed impressive sportsmanship and teamwork. Thank you to all of our students who participated and represented AHE, and to Mrs. MacLeod and Ms. Draboczi for coaching. Of course a big THANKS and to all of our parent volunteers!

Badminton

Badminton is always a popular sport at AHE. Grade 6 and 7 practices and playoffs have been taking place in P.E. classes and at recess and lunch under the guidance and coaching of Mr. Cadegan, Mrs. Vickers, and Mrs. Gadbois. Please note the date change for the upcoming tournaments!

The tournament schedule is as follows:

Thursday Nov 13 Singles (Grade 6’s @ AHE, Grade 7’s @ BVE)

Tuesday Nov 18 Doubles (Grade 6’s @ AHE, Grade 7’s @ BVE)

Thursday Nov 20 Gr. 6 Mixed Doubles @ CPE

Tuesday Nov 25 Gr. 7 Mixed Doubles @ CPE

Gymnastics

Our Kindergarten and Kindergarten/Grade 1 classes are benefitting from 3 sessions each at the Gymnastics Center at BVE. Each grade gets a chance to be exposed to a new sport. Coming up in the new year, our grade 1 students will receive skating lessons, and our grade 4s will be invited to the Nordic Center.

Haunted House

Thank you to everyone who participated and helped make the Annual Grade 7 Haunted House a great success! Grade 7 students planned, organized and made the evening a spooky extravaganza. Thanks to Mrs. Gauer, Ms. Hall and the grade 7 parents for their support in baking, manning th

e front door and cleaning up! The students raised an incredible $1600 towards their year-end trip to Sunnybrae.

Careers Week

BC Career Education Week is November 24-28th. The government of BC has delclared this week to help students explore and plan their futures.  Please reach out if you would feel comfortable sharing in front of a group! To kick off Careers Week, Monday, Nov. 25th will be ‘Dress as Your Future Career Day”.

Avalanche Awareness

On November 17th and 26th, our students in K-7 will be taking part in Avalanche Awareness presentations. The presentations are provided by local avalanche professionals and educators and are designed to target all student user groups who live in or near the mountains. Empowering youth with this information supports students with early awareness of winter safety and preparation to continue learning while promoting a healthy outdoor lifestyle.

PAC News

How is it November already? It feels like just a week ago we were welcoming October! We had a fantastic month filled with meaningful events.

First, a big thank you to Save On Foods for their generous donation of 30 pies and whipped cream for our Thanksgiving Pie Day. The students truly enjoyed this special picnic lunch, and we couldn’t have done it without the help of our amazing volunteers.

We also hosted our annual Scholastic Book Fair during the student conferences. A big shout-out to Jillan Casson for her hard work in organizing the event! We appreciate all the parents who volunteered to set up, tear down, or assist during the fair. Thanks to all the support from our school families, we raised over $1,600 in books for Arrow Heights—an incredible achievement!

Looking ahead, our next event is a Kawakubo hot lunch on Tuesday, November 25th. Keep an eye out for order forms coming home in planners soon! If you’re interested in volunteering for this hot lunch or any PAC event, please reach out to us at pacarrowheights@gmail.com.

While we’re not rushing into December just yet, don’t forget that PAC will host our annual Holiday Craft Fair on December 13th. Start brainstorming with the kids about what crafts your family would like to contribute! We are also on the hunt for someone to take over and be the new Craft Fair Coordinator, as the current coordinator is takin on a new role within PAC. It would be great to find someone to shadow her this year and take it over next year.

I’d also like to remind everyone about our upcoming PAC meeting on Monday, November 3rd, at 6:30 PM in the AHE library. Child care will be provided, and we welcome all parents, caregivers, and grandparents to attend.

Numeracy News

Numeracy Problem of the Week

At AHE, we believe that problem solving is at the heart of strong numeracy learning. When students engage in problem-solving activities, they develop critical thinking, perseverance, and creativity — skills that extend far beyond the math classroom. Problem solving encourages students to take risks, explain their reasoning, and see that there can be many ways to approach a challenge.

To support this, we feature a “Problem of the Week” for all students to try. Each week, a new math problem is posted in our front foyer, inviting students to collaborate, share strategies, and celebrate mathematical thinking. It’s a wonderful way to build a community of curious and confident mathematicians who see math as meaningful and fun, and we love to see them excited about solving problems!

Numeracy Fair

A huge shout out to Mr. Gardiner’s grade 6 class who successfully hosted AHE’s first Math Fair during Goal Setting Conferences. Their leadership in learning the games and then teaching them to others was SUM-thing special! Thank you to those families who took time out of their busy schedules to visit the fair!

Counting Collections

We are still collecting items for our counting collections “bank”. If you have multiples of items at home that you would like to donate please drop them off at the office. Examples; bottle caps, pasta, birthday candles, stones, marbles, game pieces, paper clips, crayons.

Indigenous Education

This month, we are excited to host Delree Dumont a second time to extend our mural in the front entrance. Delree uses her love for nature and her indigenous heritage to bring to life the spirit of the land. If you look closely, you will find the animals that are represented in the Circle of Learning, a program used across the grades at AHE to bring BC’s Core Competencies to life. Students love watching Delree work, and chatting with her about the pointillism technique. Delree’s art will finalize the “new look” in our entryway. Please come and check it out!

Upcoming Dates:

 

Nov. 3-7 Delree Dumont at AHE

Nov. 3 – Whole School Assembly 11:15

Nov. 3 – Twin Fiddlers (gym) 1:00-2:00

Nov. 3 – PAC Meeting 6:30

Nov. 7 – Remembrance Day Assembly 10:45

Nov. 7 – Intermediate Explorations in the afternoon

Nov. 10 – Professional Development Day – no school

Nov. 11 – Remembrance Day – no school

Nov. 13 – Badminton Singles Tournament (gr. 6 & 7)

Nov. 13 – Hot Lunch – Butter Chicken and Naan

Nov. 17 – Avalanche Presentations

Nov. 18 – Badminton Doubles Tournament (gr. 6 & 7)

Nov. 20 – Badminton Mixed Doubles (gr. 6)

Nov. 25 – PAC Sushi lunch

Nov. 25 – Badminton Mixed Doubles (gr. 7)

Nov. 26 – Avalanche Presentations

Nov. 27 – Hot lunch – Mac & Cheese

Nov. 28 – Spirit day – Teacher/Student swap

Nov. 28 – Moonlight Madness Date Night

Dec. 1 – AHE Food Drive Starts

Dec. 1 – Whole School Assembly 11:15

Dec. 1 – PAC Meeting 6:30