EQAO Assessments

EQAO assessments will be sent home with Grade 4 students on November 27, 2023.  This will be a hard copy of the assessment.  Grade 7 students in their respective High Schools will be sending home assessments on or before November 30, 2023.

Rockets Active Wear

During parent teacher interviews on November 23, Parent Council displayed several  items that will be for sale on our website in the very near future.

Stay tuned!!!!!!!

Holy Redeemer Shopping Day

Please see the letter regarding Dec 13, 2023 Shopping Day.

Please take note that after a consultation with our students, it was decided that  the monetary  donations that are received for the Christmas Shopping

Day will be directed to an OCSB school in the East, St. Michael Ottawa. Please take note that these donations will be received by way of cash on line which will go live Dec 1, 2023.

Advent Project

Please see the letter regarding Advent Project.

Lockdown Practice

Students and staff participated in a lockdown practice on November 21, 2023.

The practice went very well, and we are very proud of how oour students participated.  We will hold another practice in the spring, as we are required to complete two lockdown pratices dring the school year. We will send notification of this practice via school messenger 1 week before the scheduled practice date.

Anti Bullying Week

Students were able to review WITS, the definition of bullying, what to do should it occur, and students also created anti bullying posters to be posted around our school.  Just a reminder that the anit bullying presetation synopsis is posted on our website. 

Student Portal Login

The OCSB Student Portal (Brightspace) is where parents and students have access to apps, games, drives, and websites that we will be using during the year (e’g’; Starfall and Zorbit’s).

The Student portal login is your child's OCSB gmail address firstname.lastname@stu.ocsb.ca and their password.

The portal link can be found on the bottom of our school website http://red.ocsb.ca.

***Also, please ensure that you are using a Chrome browser to access the portal and that you have logged out of any family/personal accounts.**

Games Club

Cathy Koss, our Children & Youth Ministry Coordinator from Holy Redeemer Church will once again be running our Thursday Games Club.  Each week students in Junior Grades have the opportunity to play games, and meet with Cathy, and speak to all the events and activities that are taking place within our Parish Church.

Inclement Weather

Our winter weather is upon us and as beautiful as it can be, it always adds an extra challenge to our routines.  When there is an inclement weather day or a “snow day” OSTA will announce that buses will not be running. This is for both morning and afternoon busing. We ask that you sign up for notifications with OSTA at OSTA notifications.  Also visit the Holy Redeemer website at  http://red.ocsb.ca/  for regular updates and twitter updates.   We ask that you only follow these two resources for information regarding busing and potential school closures.

On inclement weather days the schools will be open and we welcome all students to attend school. If they do not attend school that day, work is always posted on Hapara.  Classrooms will be keeping with their normal routines.

If your child takes a bus and you would like them to still attend school, you will be responsible for their pick up at the end of the day.  If you are arranging for a family member or friend to pick up your child we will need written permission sent to the Holy Redeemer email address at holy.redeemer@ocsb.ca before 2:30pm.  

If your child does not take a bus and your child will not be attending school on inclement weather days, you still need to call in the students' absence prior to 8:30 am.  

In previous years parents would pick up their child at the front entrance. We can not do this this year as it would cause too much congestion in the front entrance.  We will follow our regular routine of meeting at the side of the school for pick up.  Classes will continue their regular staggered dismissal routine.

To make sure you are receiving regular communication from the school please sign up for SchoolMessenger at School Messenger sign up .   

Thank you for your assistance and cooperation with this.

Popcorn Sales

Holy Redeemer School will be doing a Kernels Popcorn Fundraiser.  Half the profits will go to the Grade 6 year end field trip and the other half will be donated between the Kanata Food Cupboard and the Stittsville Food Bank.

There are 5 flavours to choose from: Buttersalt, Dill Pickle, Low-fat caramel, Salt & vinegar and White Cheddar.  All popcorn is gluten and nut free.

The cost is $2.50 per bag.

Orders will be done monthly. The third and the fourth order will be for the following dates:   Dec 1, 15, 22

                                     Jan 12, 19, 26

To order the popcorn you will need to do so via Cash on line.  The Cash on line will go live for the Dec order from Nov 10-19.  The Cash on line will go live for the January order from Dec 8 - Dec 17.

Thank you for supporting the Grade 6 Fundraiser.

Pizza 

Pizza will be delivered to students on Thursday, Nov 30, 2023.  Just a reminder that Pizza boxes will be brought back home.  Please also note in case of inclement weather on Pizza Day we cancel Pizza, and reschedule the Pizza day for another time.  We give Parents this information once the day is arranged. If students are able to come to school on an inclement weather day which happens to be a pizza day (it does occur from time to time), they will need to bring lunch.

Arrival / Dismissal Drop off / Pick up

In order to promote the safety of our students at Holy Redeemer Catholic School, we have developed and implemented a plan to ensure the safe arrival and dismissal of our children. Parents and school staff have a vital role in this process. 

ARRIVAL: Children enter the drop off zone, which is located at the West end of the school . They do so between 8:15 - 8:30 a.m. The students will then cross over the school yard line.  The Grade 1-3 students will walk to the Primary area (pavement area up to the middle door) and the Grade 4-6 students will walk to the pavement area past the middle doors and upper field area. Teachers will be in these designated areas.  At 8:30 a.m. they will proceed into the school through their designated door, and be escorted with their teacher to their classroom. Please note that Parents/Adults are asked not to enter the school yard, and we ask that parents separate from their child at the school yard line and exit the school area immediately. Parents coming from the park area pathway are asked to walk along the sidewalk in the parking lot, and make their way to the front of the school, and then to the drop zone.  We do not want parents to be in the backyard area of the school. 

In the case of inclement weather, students will enter the school from kinder doors, and be directed by staff to their classrooms. This occurs between the times of 8:15 - 8:30 AM. We ask for your full cooperation to implement them safely. 

Dismissal:  Our students will be staggered in their dismissal beginning at 2:50 and ending at 3:00 p.m.  They will exit from their designated doors, and make their way to the drop off zone area.  If parents are here to pick up their child, we ask them to wait on the sidewalk to the North,  and the area directly in front of the school.  The area in front of the school can be a heavy traffic area, and become very congested, therefore keep in mind social distancing when you are waiting. That is why we suggest the sidewalk to the North. Our JK/SK students will be escorted to the drop off zone area beginning at 2:50 p.m. and handed directly to Parents/Guardians. If Parents/Guardians are here to pick up JK/SK students, please stand to the West side of the drop off zone. Once you have your child, please exit the area immediately.  We ask that you do not congregate on school property. From 2:55-3:00 p.m. our Grade 1- 3 students will be escorted to the drop zone area.  Once again we ask Parents/Guardians to stand to the West side of the drop off area.  Once you have your child, please exit the area immediately.  At 3:00 p.m. our Grade 4-6 students will be escorted to the drop zone area. Once again we ask Parents/Guardians to stand to the West side of the drop off area.  

Drop Off /Pick UP If you are driving your child to school in the morning or picking them up at dismissal time, we ask you to park your car away from the school and WALK -A-Block. We ask that you do not enter the Bus Lane; these are off limits to all cars between 8:15 AM - 9:00 AM and 2:45 PM - 3:30 PM  Pylons will be put up in front of the bus lanes as a reminder of this practice. 

Parking

Parking has always been a  major concern at Holy Redeemer.  We received many  reports of unsafe situations in front of the school (U Turns in front of Crosswalk) and in our parking lot involving our students and staff. We want to be proactive and avoid these situations.  We ask our Parents to “walk a block”.  This means parking on one of the adjacent side streets, and walking over to the school to pick up your child.  We also ask that you do not use our parking lot during pick up time, and drop off.  This area is part of our Bus Loading Zone which occurs between 8:00 - 8:30 AM and 2:30 - 3:15 PM. We ask that no cars be in this area at this time to ensure the safety of both our students and staff.

School Website

We encourage all of our Parents/Guardians to check our Holy Redeemer website daily during the week.  Updated information from the Board is published, as well as weekly updates from the school, as well as important dates which are listed on the school calendar. Please take note that the information that is on weekly updates will also be sent via school messenger.

Student Fees

We have asked $8.50 for student fees this year for our Grade 1-6 students.  .

We continue to keep this open on the Cash on line.

There are still  fees that have not been collected. We have sent email reminders with very few responses. Emails will once again be sent out this week by administration . We continue to extend the deadline of our cash online payment.

 With regards to class trips, our teachers will be looking at long range plans this month. Our teachers will be  sending requests for money for classroom activity/trips nearing the end of the school year or closer to when the activity/trip is scheduled. We feel that this process will have more transparency for fees collected for this type of activity/trip. 

Grade 1-6 Student fees can be paid by using the cash on line payment method.  This is located on the school website if you have not already signed up for this in previous years.  ONLINE PAYMENTS 

For safety and efficiency reasons, we want to reduce the amount of Cash & Cheques coming into our school.  School related expenses will be available online for you to make the payment.

Parents please register.

Here is how:

Step 1 Go to this website:

https://ocsb.schoolcashonline.com

Step 2 Register by selecting the “Get Started Now” and follow the steps

Step 3 After you receive the confirmation email, please select the “click here” option, sign in and add each of your children to your household account.

School Messenger

 Please sign up for School messenger to make sure you will be receiving all communication from our school. If this is not completed you may miss out on receiving some important announcements from our school such as report cards.. School Messenger

Office Administrator 

Please take note that oftentimes you will not be able to speak to our Office Administrators 30 minutes before the end of school bell at 3:00 PM. This is a very busy time.  Requests to have students be removed from the bus or ready for you to pick them up early should be done in the morning,  by communication in the agenda or a voicemail message before 12:00 PM.  Please understand that these types of requests may not be addressed if you are calling late. We would kindly ask that if you are requesting a pick up at 

2:55, please wait until 3:00.

Thank you 

Important Dates

November 27 EQAO Assessments sent home Gr. 4 students

November 30 Games Club 

November 30 Pizza Day

December 1  Drop off for donations for Christmas Shopping Begins

Cash on line goes live on line for monetary donations for Christmas Shopping Day