The Lansdowne Elementary School Council and the Parent's Association of Lansdowne School (PALS) are committed to supporting Lansdowne School. We believe our main priority is to help ensure a high quality of education for our children. We play an advisory and supportive role to the principal and staff, and our volunteers work to support community/school activities, and to provide money/assistance for activities that enhance our children's learning.
Working an independent casino has raised most of our money this year. Many parents gave up their valuable time ensuring that PALS has a substantial amount of money to spend on enhancements for the school, benefiting all our children. Hosting “special lunches” raises other small sums of money. For the past five years PALS has organized a Math Fact-a-thon to raise money for school library books. This year, a Spell-a-thon will take place instead, with the same fund-raising goals in mind. Thank you to all members of the Lansdowne community for their participation in this endeavour, which supplements our library collection on an annual basis.
The Parent Association's objectives are re-defined annually. PALS has supported many activities in the school, and continues to provide financial support to the Music, Art, ESL and Drama programs. We have sponsored events for the Science program as well. For the past four years, we helped fund a ski trip for the whole school to enjoy a day of skiing at Snow Valley, and we were able to buy books, software and sports equipment as well. Every year we sponsor cultural performances; usually we enjoy a dance, a singing group and a theatre group. We hold a family dance, help celebrate multicultural days and hold a book fair that buys books for the library.
We are very proud of Lansdowne School! Having students from all around the world registered here gives our school a uniquely multicultural feel. The special educational focus of our teachers is Gardner's Multiple Intelligences Theory, which is a well-researched teaching strategy that is proving to be very effective and is becoming widely used. We have a list of host families willing to share information with you and your family about our school and our teachers.These families speak a variety of languages besides English, and would be pleased to communicate with you in your own language. Please contact any member of the PALS Executive for 2007-2008 (see the link below) for more information.
PALS meets on the second Monday (not counting holidays) of every month during the school year at 7:00 pm. in the Lansdowne School Library. Please join us. We would love to meet you!
