Woodlawn School

November is a busy time for our teaching staff as they prepare the first report cards of the year and prepare for Parent Teacher Conferences. Grade 1-4 report cards will be available on the parent portal on November 28. Kindergarten report cards will consist of their Early Years Evaluation (EYE) report, and will be discussed at the Parent Teacher Conferences (Nov 20).

Parent Teacher Conferences will take place on November 20. More information on setting up these appointments will be shared later on this month. Parent-Teacher Conferences are a chance for the parents to meet with their child's teacher without the child present to discuss the successes and concerns about their child's learning.

We also want to take this opportunity to remind you to connect to your Parent Portal Account. As we don't print report cards anymore, you must access them digitally on your Parent Portal Account. The Parent Portal is a very important place for you to get information from the school, digitally sign permission forms, change contact information, and pay fees.

If you don't have a Parent Portal account yet, please contact the school at woodlawn@hsd.ca and one of our secretaries will send you the information to get set up. If you are having trouble accessing it, check out the website at https://hsd.ca/schools/parents/parent-portal/ for assistance. This is a great tool to keep up to date with what is going on at school!

Vince Hiebert - Principal

Marla McEachern - Vice-Principal

Can Self-Regulation Help With My Child’s Challenging Behaviours?

When children feel stressed, they can “flip their lid” — yelling, crying, or shutting down. These reactions often come from the brain’s stress response, not defiance or disrespect.

The Brain Under Stress

We can think of the brain as having three main parts:

• Blue Brain (Thinking Brain) – Helps us plan, listen, and make choices.

• Red Brain (Feeling Brain) – Handles emotions, relationships, and memories.

• Brown Brain (Survival Brain) – Reacts automatically with fight, flight, or freeze.

When stress takes over, the Feeling and Survival Brains go into overdrive, and the Thinking Brain goes offline. That’s when big emotions take charge.

Helping Children Reconnect

Self-regulation is about bringing the thinking and feeling parts of the brain back into balance.
Before kids can calm themselves, they need our help — this is called co-regulation.

You can support your child by:

• Staying calm and using a gentle tone

• Taking slow breaths together

• Offering space or quiet time

• Saying: “I can see you’re upset. Let’s take a moment.”

Learn More

Watch this quick video explaining why we “flip our lid”:
Why We Lose Control of Our Emotions (Dr. Dan Siegel)

Remember

Challenging behaviour is often stress behaviour. When we respond with calm connection, we teach children how to find their own calm too.

We are thankful that the CFS Church across the street from Woodlawn has graciously let us use their parking lot for the past many years. We want to keep our relationship with them as a positive one and be good neighbors to them as well.

To help with this, we ask that if parking in the church parking lot, please park in the spots closest to Woodlawn School, leaving the spots closer to the church for those needing to access the church building. This will help us keep a positive relationship with our neighbors!

In order for prescription medication to be administered by staff, parents need to bring it in the original container/box with the label on. There are forms at the office for parents/guardians to fill out. We ask that as much as possible, all efforts are made to give medication at home instead of at school.

We are very happy to let you know that Woodlawn School will be participating in Community Christmas again this year. We are asking families who are able to send a new, unwrapped toy or a gift card between November 24 and November 28. These toys will be distributed in Christmas hampers to families in need in our community. The organizers at Community Christmas have asked that toy guns/violent toys not be collected.

We will also be collecting food for Southeast Helping Hands at the Parent-Teacher Conferences on November 20.

If you feel your family would benefit from a Christmas hamper this year, please register at https://steinbachcommunitychristmas.com/

Thank you in advance for helping us help the children in our community. Together we can make sure everyone has a wonderful Christmas!

Hearing screening will take place at Woodlawn School on November 6 and 7. The screening helps to identify children who may have educational difficulties due to undiagnosed permanent or long-term hearing impairment. Early identification is expected to result in earlier intervention and thus fewer and less severe associated difficulties.

All students in Kindergarten and grade 1, new students to Hanover School Division, and students whose teachers have suggested hearing screening will be screened. Children with known hearing impairments will not be screened. The students will be brought to the area where the screening is taking place by a staff member or a parent volunteer.

If after the screening it is determined that further testing with an audiologist is needed, parents/guardians will be contacted by the school.

If you have any questions about the screening please contact the school.

Hello Woodlawn Families

Your Friendly Neighbourhood PAC here! I hope everyone has been able to enjoy all the beautiful Fall days we've had, and able to stay cozy for all the rainy ones.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Niakwa fundraiser. We raised just under $7000! Reminder, pizza pick up will be Thursday November 6th between 3:30-5:30pm in the CFC parking lot across from the school.

If you've been to the school recently you will have seen there is some new accessible equipment on the playground. The new musical play area has been installed. HURRAH!!! Thanks to various PAC members for all their hard work and time to get that installed, and also shout out to Diamond Construction and Elite Redi-mix for helping us get holes and concrete into the ground. Thanks to the Pistons for sending out a few players to help with installation.

And thanks to all of you and past Woodlawn families for all their hard work fundraising to make this playground possible.

Our next two PAC meetings are November 4th and December 2nd @ 11:50 in the Library. We would love to have you come join us. PAC meetings are a great place for ALL parents to hear about what is happening at Woodlawn from our Principal.

If you have any questions or concerns please email us at woodlawnelementarypac@gmail.com

Ang Plett

PAC Chair

Kindergarten parents of students in KF2 and KM2: Please bring your child to school for 9:30 am on November 18 if they require a retake.

Please contact Lifetouch at 1-866-457-8212 if you have any questions about picture orders.

Go to the drop down menu of Services where you can choose:

Bus Delay Bulletins where any bus that is late is posted with the approximate delay.

Thank you for checking these options before calling the Hanover School Division Transportation Department with your questions regarding bus delays. Any questions for transportation please call 204-320-2347.

If your child will be late or absent please notify the school in one of the following ways:

**Leave a voicemail at 204-326-6110 anytime

**Email woodlawn@hsd.ca and your child's teacher (teacher's emails available on our website at woodlawn.hsd.ca/about/staff/)

**Enter an absence request through your Parent Portal account

**Phone the school at 204-326-6110 before 9:00

As a safety measure our policy is to phone home if we have not heard from the parent/guardian of an absent student. If necessary we will also phone workplaces and emergency contacts to make sure the student is safe. Any student that is arriving late (after 9:00) is to check in at the office before proceeding to class.

Email: woodlawn@hsd.ca
Website: www.woodlawn.hsd.ca
Location: 411 Henry St, Steinbach, MB, Canada R5G 0R1
Phone: 204-326-6110
Twitter: @WoodlawnHSD