As part of our ongoing commitment to supporting our Sudbury Catholic parents, the SCDSB would like to provide a link to the latest newsletter from The Ontario Association of Parents in Catholic Education (OAPCE).
This month’s newsletter comes in three parts:
Holy Trinity Catholic School isn’t set to open its doors and welcome students until September 2015; however, this didn’t stop the newest members of the Holy Trinity school community from gathering for the Welcome to Kindergarten Orientation session. Parents are a child’s first and best teacher and learning about how to play and discover with your child in order to support them as they begin school is a special opportunity. The Welcome to Kinderdarten Orientation event allows parents/caregivers to attend workshops at their neighbourhood school where they receive early learning resources from The Learning Partnership and learn the strategies and rationale for using the resources with their child. Pre-school children, registered to begin their educational journey in the fall, and their families participated in an evening of literacy / numeracy early learning activities organized by the school staff and community partners, including the Sudbury & District Health Unit; Best Start Hubs New Sudbury; the Greater Sudbury Public Library; Teddy Bear Daycare; Optometrist, J. Levesque; and, Speech Language Pathologist, N. Keating. Aila Lepage, whose son will be starting Full Day Kindergarten in French Immersion at Holy Trinity in in the fall said that “It was very informative for us. We are looking forward to the start of Brody’s school career…he is in great hands!”
Students at St. Bernadette Catholic Elementary School take heart health seriously. During the month of May students got active and skipped to their heart’s content while collecting over $3,700.00 in pledges for heart disease and stroke research. This partnership with the Heart and Stroke Foundation teaches students about healthy eating, the importance of daily physical activity, and the benefits of giving back to our community. Teacher Colette Perrin, the Jump Rope Event Coordinator at St. Bernadette, said , “Every year the students look forward to the opportunity to have loads of fun skipping and contriubuting to this great cause!” A special thank you goes out to the school community for their dedication and hard work in collecting pledges.
Students from St. Andrew, St. Bernadette and St. St. Raphael Catholic Elementary Schools came together in prayer to celebrate Catholic Youth Day at St. Andrew the Apostle Church.
The three schools will form Holy Trinity Catholic School in the fall. This is the first time all three student bodies came together in the church to celebrate the Eucharist. Students at all three schools helped in the mass presenting the readings, altar serving and forming a choir. Father Sam D’Angelo presided over the mass.
The students of St. Bernadette Catholic Elementary School were in the spotlight at a Poetry Café hosted at Chapters for Catholic Education week. Their tremendous creativity caught the eye of Tom Leduc, Sudbury’s Poet Laureate. Leduc was in attendance and is interested in featuring some of the poetic versus on his website which is featured on the Greater Sudbury Public Library website.
The poems presented were written by students as part of their poetry study for Language Arts classes. Topics included: My family, my sibling, my pet, the environment and even one about tacos.
The St. Bernadette Catholic School Choir, led by Mme Begic, practice a song over the morning announcements. They performed for the Catholic Youth Day mass celebrated at St. Andrew the Apostle Church. They sang the theme song for Catholic Education Week, “Exploring Paths of Joy.”
The Diocesan Centre is planning an inclusive day of celebration based on indigenous culture, and would love a big turn out at this event. All students, staff, families and friends are welcome and encouraged to attend! It looks to be a great day planned!
INDIGENOUS CELEBRATION
Saturday, May 23, 2015
Fielding Park
5:30 am. Sunrise Ceremony ~
8:00 am. Pancake Breakfast ~
9:00 am. Teaching Carousel – Stations will be set up to be rotated through – 6 stations with 20 minute presentations at each~
a) Children drumming station~
b) Craft – decade of the rosary with four/six colour beads + leather OR~leather bookmark
c) 7 Grandfather teachings
d) Legends – Elders telling the stories~
e) Medicines and Wheel
f) Sacred Elements (fire keeper, tobacco, stones, feather, pipe, drums, smudge, animals) ~
11:00 am. Healing Circle – prayers, scripture (trilingual), blessing~
1:30 pm. Feast – “pot luck”
3:00 pm Travelling Song/Blessing~
For more information and access to resources, please consult:
http://arise-ssm.weebly.com
Students at St. Bernadette Catholic Elementary School meet on a monthly basis with their Café d’amitié partners. Pictured here are the Grade 1 students with their Café d’amitié partners from Grade 6. Students participate together in a variety of activities that can range from reading to creating art projects to playing games. This is an excellent way to foster a sense of belonging, build relationships amongst students, provide students with social and emotional models and development opportunities and help children feel safe and accepted at school. This month in honour of the virtue of Stewardship and Earth Day, Café d’amitié was dedicated to demonstrating how we can show our love for all of God’s creations and do our part to respect the earth.
The Sudbury Catholic District School Board in conjunction with the Sudbury & District Health Unit is celebrating putting importance on partnerships and building strong relationships in education. Senior Administration, Principals, Vice-Principals Managers and several other leaders within the Sudbury Catholic Board and the Sudbury & District Health Unit gathered on April 8th, 2015 to participate in an interactive learning session featuring Dr. Wayne Hammond, of Resiliency Initiatives Canada. Dr. Hammond presented research-based information about Resiliency and a Strength-Based Approach. The presentation was very well received by all participants and will further the work of the Principal Learning Teams as they continue to examine their calling to “Be Resilient Leaders” in their schools.
That same evening Dr. Hammond also presented to an auditorium full of parents from the “soon to be” Holy Trinity Catholic School community. He shared his outline of a strength-based parenting approach that strengthens a child’s abilities to meet life’s challenges with thoughtfulness, confidence, purposefulness and empathy. Dr. Hammond believes that, “The real task of parenting is not to prepare the path for our children, rather to prepare them for the path that they will need to walk.”
Diana Salvador, Principal of St. Bernadette Catholic School and Principal appointed to Holy Trinity Catholic School said, “I look forward to working diligently at Holy Trinity Catholic School to put Dr. Hammond’s message into practice in partnership with the parent community to foster a trusting school culture where students, parents, teachers and all stakeholders feel valued, connected and engaged in their educational journey.”
