Bridging the Gap is a collaboration between students and residents at the Sylvan Lake Bethany Care Centre. The goal is to help improve the well-being for all those involved by showing that regardless of age, everyone can make a difference in another person’s life. This project was given $1,400.

Testimonial

The project enhanced Catholic education by providing students with the opportunity to participate in a community ministry that impacts many people. Seniors at the local care centre looked forward to visits from our students, especially since many do not have regular visitors. This initiative also gave the residents a chance to provide a meaningful contribution to others. This project exposed children to the eight characteristics of Catholic identity by having a strong focus on humanness, community and sacramentality. This project also helped to prepare students to live as Christian leaders who promote the moral teachings of Jesus Christ.

 

Grade 5 students will get the opportunity to be servant leaders in the school. Students will each take on a leadership role to serve the school community, through projects that align with authentic learning and the Eight Characteristics of Catholic Identity. This initiative has been allocated $1,000.

 

Testimonial:

One of our themes for this year was humanness. We strived to teach students that they have talents they can use to help others. Students were able to choose a leadership group where their talents would be showcased. The groups included one for faith, spirit, active living, school assistants, STEAM, and drama.

• The faith group was responsible for leading prayer every Friday morning in the gathering area and during assemblies. They also raised money for the Ronald McDonald House with an ornament raffle at Christmas.
• The spirit group picked theme days during the year for students and staff to dress up.
• The school assistants helped with library pick-up, milk sales, bringing sand toys out during recess, and delivering hot lunch.
• The STEAM team designed and organized math and science challenges for classes to do.
• The active living group made led recess games.
• The drama group led carolling at Christmas.

Students learned to give back to their community and that even at 10 years of age, they can make a difference in someone’s life. We talked with some of the grade 5 students about their experience with leadership and here is what they had to say; Student 1: Leadership is a lot of fun. We helped the community. It was nice to have options to decide, and we grew in teamwork. Student 2: We were helping our school to be better. Student 3: It was fun because of all the responsibilities we had. We got to show kids what they can do in the future and we could both reflect on the learning.

Grade 3-5 students who have leadership potential and excel in their studies will be invited by their teachers to take part in a variety of community activities with experts to develop a passion for an area of study. This could include students spending the day with faith leaders, newspaper reporters, engineers, architects, dignitaries, farmers, criminologists, scientists, bakers, etc. Also, students will get to choose a non-profit organization to work with, such as Medicine River Wildlife Centre, Ronald McDonald House, the Lending Cupboard, etc. This project has been given for $3,120 to use over two school years.

Testimonial

This program’s goal is to allow students with high potential and those achieving excellence to develop passions and leadership skills. It has become a highly desired program within our school. Through it, students have the opportunity to work with experts in different areas, go on field trips of interest, and lead the school in Social Justice projects. In these social justice projects, the students are involved in all aspects, from initial brainstorming to final decisions as to how the money will be spent. This program helps the students develop the skill of humanness since each student’s experience will be unique – the sessions they take part in are selected just for them, and no two students will be in all the same sessions. The funds have been used to pay for buses to take the students to places off-site (Kerry Wood Nature Centre, Red Deer College), pay admissions and program fees, and to pay for substitute teachers when the lead teacher must be away from her class.

Having completed one year with this project, we have seen immense growth in students in terms of their confidence and understanding of who they are. Students with high ability often feel “different” than others and unable to connect with their peers. This opportunity to be with other like-minded students is invaluable. Students know they are not alone in their ways of thinking.

The Bucket Filling for Jesus Brigade is a group of Grade 4 and 5 students who choose to be leaders in the school community to support mental, emotional and physical health initiatives. These students will get the opportunity to attend a retreat at Sacred Heart Parish. There will be a mass in the morning and the afternoon will be filled with training and planning sessions encompassing faith. This program has been allocated $900.

 

Testimonial

The ‘Bucket Filling for Jesus’ Leadership Club members chose to change their name to ‘Health Champions’ at the beginning of the school year. Though the name has changed, it did not shift the priority of the group but rather allowed for student voice. Our club members were encouraged and supported to grow in their faith journey through our offsite retreat, acts of service and leadership opportunities throughout the school. All students attended a Leadership Retreat early in the year at Sacred Heart Parish where they participated in faith-filled activities. The retreat focused on leadership qualities, conflict resolution, new games to share with students and food preparation.

Our Health Champions also worked hard to help our school counsellors promote ‘Food for Mood’ by leading classroom discussions about how to nourish our bodies so we are spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically healthy. Student Leaders have monthly commitments, one being to help at our monthly Bucket Filling Assemblies to create excitement by leading certificate recipients in with signs/pom poms. Their second monthly commitment is a job that requires them to demonstrate leadership skills around the school in a variety of ways, such as creating a bulletin board to promote healthy life choices, providing outdoor equipment for each grade to use during recess, helping our kindergarteners during lunch, organizing and running games at recess. Leaders model our virtues and promote these through their work in our school all year long. The funding from the Education Foundation was used for supplies/food for our off-site retreat at Sacred Heart, supplies for school activities and our Halloween candy exchange program thus far. Typically in the spring, we use the remainder of the money to purchase supplies for our outside PLAY program to encourage mentorship with our younger students.

A big thank you to the Education Foundation for supporting our programs at St. Teresa of Avila School!