Dear SSAF Members,

We see that individual schools are beginning or have begun inviting other schools for basketball and volleyball games. This is a decision made by your individual school to take the inherent risks involved in these activities. We appreciate your efforts to resume competition, but would like to clarify that these are unsanctioned SSAF events.

Many schools are not ready to allow other schools to enter their building or vice versa, and will continue to offer their own intramural competition within or between cohorts.

Due to this we are not ready to resume SSAF-wide leagues or tournaments.

Hopefully, this changes in the coming months and we can begin planning some events.

Yvonne Cahill

SSAF Vice President

(Previous message September/2020)

Dear SSAF Members,

We hope this message finds you, your families and School well.

With much regret, we have made the decision to cancel the 2020 SSAF Spring Season.

This decision is based on information announced by Premier Ford and Education Minister Lecce that public schools will remain closed until at least May 4, 2020, as a public health measure.

Although this extended school closure, as per the Education Act, applies only to public schools, it signals the approach the Provincial Government will take for private schools and child care centres.

Like all of you, we are aware that private schools will also remain closed until April 14, 2020 according to the Declaration of Emergency, which only allows closures to be extended for one 14-day period at a time.

We understand that this is a predictive decision, but we strongly believe it will be the correct one for the safety of our students, staff and competition.

We hope that we will see everyone next year.

Thank you for your support and patience.

Please stay safe and healthy.

SSAF Executive

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(Previous announcement)

The other day, the Minister of Education issued a ministerial order to close all publically funded schools in Ontario for two weeks following the public school March Break. This decision was made to support the containment of COVID-19 in the province.

While the SSAF is not a school, we are a family of schools with a large community of students. The SSAF understands that this is an Ontario-wide initiative designed to protect the health and wellbeing of Ontarians and, as such, we think it is important that the SSAF is in line with this decision. We know that a large number of our member schools have also taken this action.

As a result, the SSAF Table Tennis and Badminton Qualifiers will be postponed in an effort to support the control of the transmission of COVID-19.

It is important to recognize at this time that there may be a need for further actions that we need to take as the situation continues to evolve rapidly. Our community's health and safety are our priority.

We will communicate with updates as we have them.

Take care and be well!

SSAF Executive

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The SSAF was developed to provide small schools and/or independent schools with a definite avenue for, but not limited by, the expression of physical talents. Our purpose is multi-fold. We want to provide girls and boys with the opportunity to participate in a variety of activities at a higher level of skill than generally found in the intramural program. The SSAF also encourages students to participate in activities in a climate of fair play and sportsmanship.

The pursuit of physical excellence is encouraged but is not the ultimate objective. We aspire to instil in our athletes those qualities which enable them to lead socially able and physically fit lives outside of the educational environment. We wish to reinforce qualities of courtesy, sportsmanship and self-respect. It is our desire to instil an appreciation of and a realistic appraisal of the concepts of success and failure.

We aim to combine satisfying interpersonal relationships with competition and offer a positive social environment in which one may pursue friendship and social responsibility. In short, sport is a medium through which we acknowledge the many capacities of the individual, and we reinforce these experiences which will bolster the rewards and satisfaction of total participation in each given school.