Change to Nutrition Break Routines at Balaclava

Beginning Monday, January 23rd, we will be making a slight change to nutrition breaks to better ensure student safety and supervision during this unstructured time.

While our nutrition break times remain the same (10:55 – 11:35 a.m. and 1:15 to 1:55 p.m.), students will now spend the first 20 minutes outside and then follow that with their indoor eating time.

Staff will work with students to adjust to this new routine and we’ll encourage students to eat their main lunch during first break and their lighter snack during second break.

On a related note, we also try to maintain our outdoor recesses to give students that daily outdoor exercise, fresh air and break from the classroom. When the temperature is below -15 (or -20 with windchill), there are active thunderstorms in the area, the surfaces are deemed too icy, or in very heavy rain, a decision would be made to stay in. In all other types of weather, including light rain, we will plan to go outside. Please ensure your child has the clothing they need to stay comfortable playing outside and then learning inside. For those students prone to finding every mud puddle or are sensitive to wet clothing, you may want to consider keeping an extra set of dry clothes in their backpack.

Finally, it is important to realize that there isn’t available supervision in the school during outdoor nutrition breaks. If your child is sick or injured, we can work with you to develop a plan to accommodate their needs, but they will need to go outside if they come to school.