Bees Visiting South Africa!
Dear Parents and Community Members: Thank you so much for your patience with our shortened day on Tuesday! Since I’ve been in APS, I can’t remember a delayed-start school day, but, with careful planning and execution, we were able to get all 1020 students to school on time (for the most part) and ready to learn! Rest assured, all of our children, on an adjusted schedule, were still able to get breakfast, lunch, recess and 35 minutes of Specials, along with all core subjects and SEL lessons.
We’ve had a great week since we last spoke (per usual!). I celebrated a Birthday at Brandon and, I have to say, there was nothing like it! The students, staff and parents were so kind and thoughtful – and now with the best present of all, I hope I can spend many more at Brandon! While Tuesday may have been a shortened day, we still kicked off International Travelers Week with fun and exciting activities taking place in the classrooms. There is so much to look forward to this week and next, like a petting zoo bringing real life South African animals to Brandon, Zunzi’s vegetable stew served in our cafeteria, exciting and engaging lessons on the history and geography of South Africa, and, of course, our Zulu dancers bringing it all together during next week’s closing ceremonies. Thank you so much to all of our parent volunteers, the MB Foundation and, of course, our IB Coordinator Sam DeCarlo for planning such a fun and engaging program for our school!
Other exciting things that took place at Brandon since we last talked:
We celebrated APS Inclusive Schools week with a focus on inclusion for all students. Our staff even wore all blue on Wednesday to show support!
Madame Darlis’ 5th grade French class started Movie Talk. They watched 10m clips and wrote the beginning of the story in French. Hearing children recite it from memory was impressive!
Ms. Halliday’s Kindergarten class identified the parts of a plant in English AND Spanish. It was a perfect example of how our English DLI classes help to reinforce target language standards.
Our gifted teachers began testing their first-look rosters. Students were seen testing away on the TTCT (Torrance Test of Creative Thinking).
Our second Saturday School of the year was a success! I loved seeing North Atlanta seniors coming to visit and support the great work we are doing at Brandon!
Ms. Parris, our amazing Special Education MOID teacher, worked with her students on learning directionality concepts in adapted PE in order to prepare for the Special Olympics coming soon.
As the year 2018 slowly comes to a close, it’s great to see the amazing things that are happening at school each and every day. With International Travelers, holiday celebrations and, of course, holiday parties, there’s a ton to be excited about as we wind down the year. Please continue to stay up to date on all things Brandon by subscribing to my Remind App, following me on Twitter and Facebook and always checking book bags for important notes coming home! Lots of permission forms and opt out letters have gone out and will continue to as we roll into the New Year. Also, don’t forget to join me if you can this Friday at 10:30am at PC for my next Principal Coffee Talk. This time we will be discussing data as it relates to our newly released CCRPI score as well as sharing public dashboards that can keep you up to date on all things Brandon. As always, please continue to reach out to me or a member of our admin team should you ever have any questions or concerns.
Until next time,
j