Thank you for another wondrous year! Thank you, parents for entrusting your most precious treasure – your child – to us.

When our first classroom was established over 20 years ago, my mission was to manifest Dr. Maria Montessori’s vision of providing a safe, nurturing, and joyful environment for children to develop to their fullest potential. I chose the words “To Reach Beyond” for the school’s motto to reflect my greatest hope for our students – that they would pursue knowledge, skills, and goals beyond the boundaries of conventional education models.

This year’s elementary and kindergarten graduates have certainly risen to that occasion. Thank you, Aedan, Mina, Neo, Addison, Avaline, Chance, Clarissa, Emiliano, Evan, Enzo, Maia, Mason, Matiz, Max, Melinda, Sabina, Tahlia, and Yaas for inspiring us with your humour, joy, curiosity, and talents! We look forward to another successful year with returning students and wish transferring students all the very best in their future endeavours.

These unprecedented times have required us to make adjustments in how we live and learn. Although challenging at first, the transition to remote learning (and back) along with the implementation of new routines have been adapted with more ease than expected – much of it due to the great resiliency and willingness to adapt on the part of our staff and families – a true testament of what it means to reach beyond.

Thank you to all our staff, families, and most of all our students, for remaining engaged in our communal educational journey reaching truly beyond the four walls of our classrooms!

Wishing everyone a Happy Summer!
Riza Weinstein

Summer Session 1 I July 6 to 31
Summer Session 2 I August 4 to 28

Back to School K & Up: Tuesday, September 8, half-a-day
Back to School Returning Preschool Students: Tuesday, September 8, 2 hours
First Day for New Preschool Students: Wednesday, September 9 as per Gradual Entry Schedule

We look forward to seeing students who have chosen to resume in-person instruction back at school this week! As per the Ministry’s restart program, elementary students are permitted to attend school part-time while preschoolers may attend full-time. Further information on the province’s Safe and Healthy School guidelines can be found on this site.

Elementary students at our school are scheduled for in-person instruction on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays complemented by remote learning on Mondays and Fridays as follows:
Extended-day Kindergarten: Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays – 8:45 am to 3:45 pm
Grades 1-7:  Tuesdays & Wednesdays – 9 am to 4 pm;  Thursdays – 9 am to 12 pm (all students) *Students who participate in music or OG lessons attend from 9 am to 4 pm.

As per the provincial authority’s advice, students will spend more time outdoors, so please send your child to school with the following items labeled clearly with his/her name:

• Sunscreen (if your child has sensitive skin and needs their own)
• Hat or cap to protect from the sun
• Water bottle
• Cutlery eg. fork, spoon (to prevent students from using hands while having snack/lunch outdoors periodically).
• Sunglasses

As you can imagine, the drop off process will be a little longer than usual with students coming in one by one, so please plan on an arrival time that allows time for the new procedure. Kindly respect physical distancing guidelines by ensuring you line-up 6 feet away from one another (and observe markings at Anchor Point). To ensure that adequate spacing is observed, please also refrain from socializing at the door during arrivals and dismissals.

We have also been working on transferring our administrative tasks online, which will also enable us to share your child’s individual activities in class on a regular basis including online sign-ups for our upcoming Parent/Teacher Conferences on Friday, June 12. So, please accept the invitation from Transparent Classroom to join this platform if you haven’t done so already.

Just like many families in BC, the school has found it challenging to ensure that we have sufficient hand sanitizer on-hand. We have been successful thanks to one of our neighbors – Long Table Distillery. Their all-natural Juniper & Citrus Hand Sanitizer, developed in collaboration with Ms. Better’s Bitters has a clean smell of Juniper & Citrus with moisturizing properties that won’t leave your hands feeling cracked or dried. Approved by Health Canada and compliant with the CDC’s recommendation of a 62% alcohol content by volume (ABV) in the protection against Covid-19, it is now available for purchase as a school fundraiser with proceeds going towards supporting Tenzin Chodron, the Nepali child whose education and living expenses our students have been sponsoring for the past ten years. She will be graduating from the Sri Mangyal Dvip school in Kathmandu, Nepal this coming year!  As with all students at Sri Mangyal Dvip School, she has committed to periodically return to her home village in Tsum to help the impoverished villagers there with the knowledge she has gained.

The cost of the sanitizer is $15 per 500 ml bottle. Please pass this on to If your friends, co-workers, or others in need of hand sanitizer as well.

The Juniper & Citrus Hand Sanitize as well as this year’s school Yearbook are both available for purchase through our munchalunch site. Please log-in to create an account if you haven’t done so yet.

Specific back-to-school details for Grades 1-7 students as well as a note from Ms. Jennifer MacNeil, our current PSG (Parent Support Group) President are noted below. If you have some time, please consider joining the PSG. The staff and I look forward to collaborating with you for the benefit of our students!

Thank you and have a great weekend,
Riza Weinstein and the Staff at Lions Gate Montessori

ANCHOR POINT GRADES 1- 7 STUDENTS
Dear Parents,

We are happy and excited to welcome back some of our students next Tuesday! As we are entering our last month of school we will have to adjust to a mix of online classes and physical classes and some of them at the same time!

We wanted to give you a heads up concerning a few changes due to the challenge of managing both online and physical lessons:

• Your child’s art class time might change. Starting next Tuesday, Mrs. Katie will teach on-site students on Tuesdays and online students on Fridays.
• Lower Elementary students who are not returning on-site on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays will receive online lessons concurrently with lessons presented to on-site students.

If your child is coming back physically, please make sure they bring their indoor shoes back with them as we will not have students walking in the school with their outdoor shoes.
Upper Elementary students are required to bring their own headset as they will have to log in for Ms. Ashley’s online classes during their time on-site.

Your child is welcome to wear a mask if they wish.

– The Anchor Point Staff

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Please note the following below:
Friday, June 5 I Group 4 French assignment due
Monday, June 8 I Upper Els I Human Body Checklist Due
Friday, June 12 I Parent/Teacher Conference via ZOOM

* Upper El Math assignments are due every week on Tuesday morning.

PSG Announcement
The Parent Support Group (PSG) needs YOU!

Our last PSG meeting of the year will be via Zoom, at 10am on 11th June 2020 to wrap up the year and to elect the new PSG executive committee for the next school year. In order to qualify for gaming grant funds from the provincial government to contribute to paying the costs of field trips and special presentations, an operating Parent Group is required. Gaming funds are a main source of the PSG income for the students from Kindergarten and up. So, it is crucial that we continue our PSG with the required executive positions: President, Vice President, Treasurer, Secretary and Members at Large.

Please consider becoming a PSG executive member to enable us to keep our access to this funding which is used to keep down the costs of student field trips. For the 2020-2021 school year, we are looking to fill the following positions:
1 x Secretary
1 x Treasurer
Members at Large

The responsibility of the PSG executive is minimal and primarily includes: attending monthly meetings (via Zoom until further notice), maintaining bank accounts to distribute funds as authorized to the school and teachers, a year-end financial summary and submission of the grant application funding for the next school year (application process online), as well as some volunteer time assisting at events such as bake sales and school performances (depending on the circumstances of the next school year). The overall time commitment is modest.

We hope that you’ll consider joining the PSG and supporting our students!

Thank you for your consideration,
Jennifer MacNeil (parent of Felix, LE)
President, Parent Support Group