School Spirit Days 

The Leadership Club has planned some School Spirit Days for the month of December, starting tomorrow (December 5) 

• Thursday, December 5 – Twinkle Toes: wear your best holiday socks or slippers 
• Tuesday, December 10 – Plaid Day: get cozy in your best plaid shirt, pants or outfit 
• Friday, December 13 – Light it up for Hanukah – wear blue and white for Hanukkah 
• Tuesday, December 17 – Sweater Weather - Show off your best festive or ‘ugly’ holiday sweater 
• Friday, December 20 – Pajama Day - Wear your comfiest PJ's for the whole school day.  

For each Spirit Day, Leadership Club students will visit K - 6 classes in period 1 to count the number of students participating.  The class with the most participation for all 5 days will have a special visit on Friday, December 20 from Rocky, our school mascot.  An "official" class photo with Rocky will be taken and displayed on the Leadership Bulletin Board and/or the winning classroom.

Inter-school Athletics | Basketball 

Congratulations to our Senior Boys Basketball team who won their final game to place first in their division.  Thank you to Coach Schmidlin and Cowan for all their time and dedication to their team.    

We are very proud of all the Junior Boys, Junior Girls and Senior Girls Basketball teams who all had terrific seasons this year.  Thank you to our coaches:  Ms Redwood, Ms Wegg, Mr Oz and Mr Yackulic.  

School Immunization Program 

The school health nurses will be returning to the school on Wednesday, December 4 to continue with required immunizations for students who could not be accommodated on Monday.    

Scholastic Book Fair 

Scholastic sent us the books, but you delivered the energy and book joy! We sold over $5300, surpassing this year’s goal of $5001! Congratulations to all our prize winners: Joseph D, Bree I, Anya T, Tommy G, Raphael O, Laila D, Zoe J and Iris S!!! Thank you again, Rideau Park, for supporting our Scholastic Book Fair fundraiser and love for reading. An enormous shout-out to all our parent and student volunteers too! We couldn’t have done it without you!   

Winter Clothing Drive  

This year, Rideau Park will be hosting a Winter Clothing Drive. From Dec. 2-13th, families can bring gently used winter clothing items that they would like to donate. These can include boots, jackets, snow pants, mittens, etc. Donations boxes will be collected by the front doors of the school   

Important | Winter Concert, December 12 

The Rideau Park School Winter Concert is scheduled for the evening of December 12.  All elementary students and the Grade 7 – 9 Band students will be performing in the concert.  Please review the information below: 

 Student Arrival Time 

• Grade Kindergarten to 4 students should arrive by 5:40 pm to meet their teachers in their regular classroom.   
• Grade 5 & 6 students should arrive by 6:50 pm to meet their teachers in their classrooms.  
• Grade 7 – 9 Band students should arrive by 6:50 pm to meet in the band room.   
• All students should enter the school by the gym (parking lot) doors.  

Student Attire 

• Grade Kindergarten to 6 students are encouraged to wear festive attire. 
• Grade 7 – Band students should wear concert performance attire: a white collared shirt & black pants / skirt, with black shoes. 

Gym Doors Open 

• Families can enter the gym starting 5:40 pm 

Who Can Watch the Concert Performances? 

• Important: Audience members should be limited to each student’s immediate household.  
• Why?  With our enrolment being so high this year, we can only accommodate immediate families as guests to be in compliance with our gym capacity and the fire code. 

Concert Times 

• Kinder to Grade 4:  6:00 – 6:45 pm 
• Intermission: 6:45 – 7:15 pm 
• Grade 5 & 6 + Jr High Band:  7:15 – 7:45 

Intermission 

• During the intermission, the elementary audience will exit and pick up Grade K – 4 students from their classrooms. 
• Grade 5 & 6 & Band audience will be able to enter the gym to be seated for the concert. 

When can students leave for home? 

• Grade K - 4 students & their guests can leave at the intermission. 
• Grade 5 – 9 students & their guests can leave at the end of the concert, approximately 7:45 pm. 

What if my child attends Summit Kids after school? 

Parents are responsible to pick up their child from Summit Kids.  Rideau Park School staff are not permitted to pick up children from Summit Kids.  

Where can I park? 

• With most staff attending the concert, there will be no available parking in the staff parking lot.  The only exception to this is for disabled parking. 
• Street parking will be available.  Be sure to attend to signage and driveways. 

Is there a fee for admission? 

Donations for the Mayor’s Food Drive are encouraged but not required.   

Leadership Club Initiative | Candygram Sales - December 12 - 17

Leadership Club students will be selling Candygrams in the main hallway at lunch on December 12, 16, and 17. Candygrams (a candy cane + a message card) will be 25 cents each. Candygrams will be delivered on December 13, 17 and 18 by Leadership Club students.

High School Information | PVA Program 

Applications are being accepted for the Performing and Visual Arts (PVA) program at Central Memorial High School. Applications are due by January 15, 2025.  

More information at this LINK   

Fun Lunch, Healthy Hunger | on behalf of RPS’ Parent Society 

The Rideau Park Parent Association is once again coordinating bi-monthly ‘Fun Lunch’ with Healthy Hunger.  This is also a great fundraiser for the school with a portion of sales being returned to the school.  Participation is completely voluntary with a variety of healthy lunch vendors to choose from.  

Parent Volunteer Opportunity: for each fun lunch Thursday, parent volunteers are needed to help sort orders and deliver to classrooms.  The time commitment is about an hour, with the start time at 11:00 am.  If available to help on one or some Thursdays, you must complete the annual volunteer registration, which includes a valid Police Information Clearance.  

Volunteers are needed for: 

• December 5 (tomorrow!) – 2 volunteers 
• January 9 – 1 volunteer  

Sign Up to volunteer for the above dates and/or future dates.  

Language Interpretation Service 

The school can provide language interpretation services for any parent / guardian who would like to speak with their child’s teacher(s) at parent teacher conferences, or other times throughout the school year. The teacher can access LanguageLine Solutions to request a language interpreter at the start of the in-person or online conference or meeting.   

Student Drop-off & Pick-up  

For students being driven directly to school, the drop-off zones are labeled on this map on the school’s website.  There is no car-accessible front door drop-off availability at our school entrance, the alley or the staff parking lot.  The same applies for student pick-up at dismissal time (ie front of the school, alley & staff parking lot are not available for pick-up).  

More information at the Parking & Drop-off page.    

Looking ahead – Calendar Events