Chow & Cha Cha Returns!

Oh, what a night! The Chow and Cha Cha came back with a bang! April 29 marked our first ICS Chow & Cha Cha event since 2016, and it couldn’t have been more worth the wait. From the delicious dinner to the enthusiastic dancing, it was truly a night to remember. The night began with a delicious meal put on by our fabulous ICS Chefs. Those meatballs were absolutely delicious! It was so nice to see our community together for our first Chow and Cha Cha in years. It was great to catch up with old friends and meet the new members of our ICS community.

DJ Rachel then got the dancing underway with her incredible musical set. All the hits were played—from today’s catchy hits to some oldies for the parents. She had every on their feet the whole night. The atmosphere was contagious as the students showed off their best moves.

The energy in the room at the Chow and Cha Cha was electric, and there were smiles on everyone’s faces. It was so heartwarming to witness the joy and enthusiasm that a school event can hold.A huge thank you goes out to our ICS Volunteer Team—you made this night so special for all of us. Your dedication and hard work made the 2023 Chow and Cha Cha a remarkable night for all of us. We already can’t wait until next year!

First Holy Communion

On May 7, 2023, our school community gathered in praise to celebrate our Grade 2 students receiving their First Holy Communion. The sun shone down as God blessed our children. We are all immensely proud of their hard work and preparation while they reached this important milestone of their faith journey. The entire school year has led our students to this day. Countless hours have been focused on prayer and reflection as they studied and prepared themselves for this sacrament. Through the guidance of their families and the ICS community, they have now grown in their understanding of the Holy Eucharist. Our heartfelt gratitude goes out to Ms. Williams, Miss Foran, and Father Pablo for guiding our children through their preparation. Your unwavering commitment and support for nurturing the spiritual growth of our ICS children is admirable and greatly appreciated.

Let us all join together to celebrate this significant milestone for our Grade 2 students. May they continue to understand and appreciate their Catholic faith and value the gift of Holy Communion. We pray that they are continuously inspired by their faith and the values that they have learned through this journey. Congratulations on a momentous occasion! May your journey of faith always be led by blessings and spiritual growth. Happy First Communion!

Our Old Fashioned Christmas Fair

The day finally arrived that we’d all been waiting for … the ICS Christmas Fair! On Saturday, December 3, our ICS community got to celebrate the Christmas season with our annual fair (our first one in three whole years!). It was a time to gather with our school mates, join in the festivities with our loved ones, and revel in the warmth of the season.

This year was jam-packed with activity after activity! The games room, children’s craft room, used books, toonie table, wine raffle, photos with Santa, baking table, and quilted masterpieces were all a hit. And our raffle tickets were a huge success! It was such a treat to share breakfast with our closest friends and family (and Santa!). The ICS kitchen elves did a delicious job serving up tasty pancakes and sausages for everyone. The our old fashioned Christmas fair. Although we were missing our beloved wreaths, plant sale, and silent auction as seen in years prior, we look forward to bringing them back in the years ahead.This year's Fair raised money to fund enrichment programs in science, math, and technology, and to meet other school needs. Through community participation, we raised over $25,000.00!

 A big thank you goes out to everyone who made this year’s Christmas Fair a success! Thank you to all who participated by volunteering their time to help set up and take down, providing baked goods, sending in items during donation week, and attending the fair. The volunteer response this year was even greater than we could’ve imagined and has made us all the more grateful for our lovely ICS community. Cheers to the holiday season!

ICS Remembrance Day 2022

On Thursday, November 10, we held our Remembrance Service at the Immaculate Conception Parish Church. Our grade six class lovingly led the service with reverence and respect for our armed forces members who’ve passed away in the line of duty. It was a solemn yet beautiful reminder of the recognition that our armed forces members deserve.

The service started with one of our grade seven students playing “Reveille” on trumpet. When played on Remembrance Day, this song symbolizes a soldier rising above his mortal duties.

 Each class had one representative light a candle encircling our poppy wreath while the whole school sang “Light a Candle for Peace.” One of our grade six students read from the book of Micah (Micah 4:3-5) and afterwards, our whole grade six class sang “In Flanders Fields” accompanied by a student on violin. Another grade six student recited “Why Wear a Poppy” by Don Crawford. Lastly, a grade seven student played “The Last Post” before our minute of silence. Remembrance Day is a day of great importance for our ICS Community because we acknowledge and expand on our responsibility to work towards the peace that our armed forces members worked so hard to achieve.

"They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old'

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.”

- Excerpted from “For the Fallen” by Laurence Binyon -

The Season of Advent is Here!

We are so excited to celebrate the season of Advent at ICS. With much anticipation, we are awaiting Christmas and getting in the spirit of the season at school and at home! Advent is the time of year that we prepare for Jesus’ birth. The four weeks prior to Christmas Day are a reason for us to patiently reflect as we long for the celebration of Christmas.

The word advent comes from the Latin word for “coming” or “arrival.” It is the perfect word to describe that Jesus is coming at Christmas. This year, Advent begins on Sunday, November 27 and ends on Saturday, December 24. You may notice our beautiful Advent wreath at Church! There are four candles on it, three purple and one pink, and each symbolizes one week of Advent. Every week, one candle is lit with each candle holding a special significance:

First Advent Candle (purple) - Hope

Second Advent Candle (purple) - Love

Third Advent Candle (pink) - Joy

Fourth Advent Candle (purple) - Peace

Try to pay special attention to the lighting of the Advent candles at Church every Sunday this year. It is such a special part of the Mass.

Perhaps you have your own Advent calendar at home too! Bringing this special symbol into your home is such a great tradition. Be sure to light your Advent calendars with your loved ones every Sunday!

There are many other ways that we can celebrate the season of Advent as well. Here are some fun things to do together as a family:

• Read an Advent story book together

• Attend Mass as a family

• Decorate your house for Christmas with a nativity set

• Practice your Christmas carols

May this season of Advent fill your home with anticipation and joy in the knowledge that we are preparing for Jesus’ birth.

The 2022 Grade 7 Camp Summit Retreat

Here’s a first-hand account of the Grade 7 Camp Summit retreat from Grade 7 students:

“Our Grade Seven class had a great time at Camp Summit from Tuesday, October 11 to Friday, October 14! Camp Summit is located in Squamish. We rode on a school bus. Some of the staff that spent time with us that we met were Megan, Kyler, Caleb, and Lorna. They were very kind and funny.

We ate breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert. The food was very delicious and they even had options for the people with dietary restrictions. Some of our favourite foods we ate included pancakes, grilled cheese with tomato soup, spaghetti, and, a personal favourite, the ice cream bar for dessert!

Our activities included archery, building a campfire, slacklining, bouldering, high ropes, mountain biking, carving, and more. The staff was very kind and encouraging, and it is fair to say that we all enjoyed the activities. One of our favourite activities was building a campfire because it was fun to work with a group and roast marshmallows.

Once of the highlights of Camp Summit were the campfires. The campfire was a class gathering where we sang songs, ate snacks, and on the last day, performed. We all slept in cabins with fun names, such as

Cloud Burst and Zenith. The bunk beds were comfortable and we enjoyed sharing a cabin with our friends.

On one of the days we went to Alice Lake where we did a hike, canoed, and played beach games. We rode up on Camp Summit’s bus which was fuelled by vegetable oil, and we all sang songs. We all enjoyed canoeing especially because it was a first for many of us. The camp provided us with a lunch that consisted of a sandwich we made, an apple, and a granola bar.

I think we were all sad to leave on the last day because we were going to miss the experiences we have encountered. To summarize our trip, we all learned more about our classmates, and we feel like we got closer over the time we spent at camp.” 

Our Little Blue Walkathon

Our ICS Walkathon came back in full swing this year! On September 29, all students, staff, and volunteer family members, walked 10 kilometres from the Immaculate Conception school grounds to Locarno Beach and back again. It was so much fun to celebrate our community by reuniting with returning families and showing our new families what the Walkathon is all about. This was our first full Walkathon since 2019 so to say it was a particularly special day would be an understatement. Building our community is at the forefront of our daily life at ICS, and this event is such a reminder of all the blessings that community bring. With the Walkathon so close to the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation, all students were encouraged to wear their orange shirts with pride as we walked our route. We walked to raise money for the Musqueam Breakfast Program, our sister schools in Haiti and Vietnam, and our school yard refurbishment. In total, our students walked almost 1,800 kilometres for our Little Blue School this year! It was a day filled with a little bit of sunshine, a lot of laughter, and only minor complaints about the Highbury Street hill! Our grand fundraising total was more than $37,500—well over our goal of $25,000. What a success! Our kindergarteners are the ones who raised the most money as a class, which was so exciting, and they got to celebrate with a class ice cream party! This is an event that we look forward to every year, and to have it shortened and cancelled during the COVID Pandemic has been a little disheartening for everyone. With the return of our full-fledged Walkathon came the return of our community spirit and excitement for the other events we’ll be resuming this year! Thank to all who participated and donated. Our Little Blue School is everything because of you!

The Walkathon is back!

Our school’s annual Walkathon is one of our major fundraisers and an important event that empowers students to help raise funds through sponsorship. Each fall, the students seek support from family, friends, neighbours and the community for their 10-kilometer walk. It’s often a highlight of the school year and so much fun is had when all of our students and teachers make their way to Jericho Beach and back.

While our school paused fundraising activities for this year, we want to continue with one very important tradition that is a part of the Walkathon. Each year, a portion of the total funds raised goes to charities in Vietnam and Haiti. We know that continuing with these donations will have a tremendous impact on hundreds of children who live in very poor communities.

So, in the spirit of tradition and goodwill, our students have committed to raising $6,200 to match previous years donations to:

• Kontum Diocese in Vietnam for their summer school program where they provide 400 children with a safe place to study and be nourished while their families are at work in the rice fields. Each year our donation is hand delivered by Father Paul Than Bui, the former pastor of our parish. 

• Sisters of Saint Ann in Haiti for education and literacy programs for children in areas whose schools were destroyed by an earthquake in 2010. The Sisters of Saint Ann were a teaching order at ICS and their BC Chapter made a substantial donation towards our recent seismic upgrade.  

Between May 20th and 31st our students will be fundraising and walking a minimum of five kilometers outside school hours.

If you would like to support our students, please visit our online donation page!

ICS Staff Professional Development

ICS Staff are constantly engaged in ways to grow our own learning . . . this year, we have had opportunities to focus on studying the Provincial Math Curriculum with teacher leaders from the Richmond School District and instructors in the UBC Faculty of Education Math Department; we have taken part in conferences and conventions to enrich our faith lives by attending the Catholic Educator’s Conference and the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress so that we can guide and support the faith of our students. Some of us have continued our work with Misty Paterson, a twenty year teaching veteran and independent consultant specializing in inquiry and concept-based pedagogy. Through all of these experiences, we endeavour to bring fresh and heartful learning to the classroom for our students!

Math Workshop: October 11, 2019

Math Workshop: November 4, 2019

Catholic Educator’s Conference: February 13-14, 2020

Los Angeles Religious Education Congress: February 20-23, 2020

Intermediate Students Take Part in Robotics Workshop

The students in Grades 5 - 7 recently had the opportunity to take part in a three day robotics workshop with a group of UBC students who comprise The C.O.D.E. Initiative. The students were engaged and challenged in each task set out for them using the Sphero robots - the chance to learn and practice coding skills was so much fun!