Avery Blanchard, a grade 2 student at St. James Catholic School has been selected as a winner in the Draw Your Canada competition. Her drawing depicting what Canada means to her has been published in the Member of Parliament’s calendar for 2011. Avery competed with hundreds of entries across Canada. Presenting Avery with a certificate of recognition is classroom teacher Mrs. Lanci.
Category: St. James School
St. James Student Proud Winner of “Teddy Bear Colouring Contest”
St. James Catholic School in Lively supported the fourth annual Teddy Bear Picnic– a fundraising event organized by the students at Cambrian College’s Police Foundations program in conjunction with the Sudbury and District Unit of Canadian Cancer Society. The St. James student council donated a bear to the teddy bear auction that raised funds for pediatric and childhood cancer research. Another part of the Teddy Bear Picnic campaign was a colouring contest and Ava Chenier, a Junior Kindergarten student was the grand prize winner of contest. Presenting Ava Chenier with a John Deere bike and a teddy bear is Patricia Clizia from the Canadian Cancer Society.
Getting into the Holiday Spirit at St. James
This past weekend parents and children of St. James Catholic School in Lively were invited to generate some Christmas spirit by decorating gingerbread houses. Proud of his creation is JK student Cole MacKenzie. Equally proud are the cake decorators Alexis Etheir (left) and Kathryn Condotta who provided professional cake decorating tips and an afternoon full of Christmas fun.
“Cell-ebrating Cells” at St. James
The Let’s Talk Science team from Cambrian College visited St. James Catholic School in Lively to “Cell-ebrate Cells” with the grades 7 & 8 students.
St. James and Cambrian College have formed a partnership giving the students the opportunity to participate in exciting, hands-on activities that meet expectations of the science curriculum.
St James Celebrates Hallowe’en
Primary students at St. James Catholic School in Lively were enthralled when parent Mrs. Joanne Leblanc shared her storytelling talents. With expression and actions she visited classrooms with two Hallowe’een Read-a-Louds.
St. James Students Create Portfolios
Just as artists, investment brokers, architects, and other professionals use portfolios to showcase their best work, the French Immersion students of Mme Narozanski’s class from St. James Catholic school are developing portfolios to highlight their best schoolwork. With teacher guidance, every student chooses work samples to place in the portfolio as the year progresses. The content in portfolios is built from class assignments and as such corresponds to all areas of the curriculum.
In this process the students are also learning how to evaluate their own work and how to set goals for future growth. Also two student-led parent conferences will take place before each report card allowing students to share their own evaluations of their work and personal goals for improvement with their parents.
St. James Catholic School Selected Provincially as a School on the Move
St. James Catholic School joined an elite group of schools across Ontario recently that have been recognized by the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat as a School on the Move. The School on the Move initiative highlights schools that are making substantial progress in raising student achievement and have sustained this progress over several years. St. James was nominated by the Ministry of Education and after a visit to the school by Ministry officials, was one of only 33 schools selected provincially. With over 4900 schools in the province including Catholic, Public, English and French Boards, Cara Soehner, Principal of the school was thrilled that St. James was selected to be part of such a prestigious group. Only four Northern schools were named as Schools on the Move, and Soehner attributes this to the strength and support of the staff who set strong foundation skills for learning.
Selection for Schools on the Move includes the following criteria:
EQAO scores in reading, writing and mathematics have improved in both Grades 3 and 6 over a three year period
Staff being able to articulate what they did and how they implemented changes
Staff being able to provide evidence of growth in student achievement
Strategies the school identified are supported by research evidence
Collaborative culture, with teachers working together, constantly learning, challenging and supporting each other
Doors being open and parents being partners.
As well as being a School on the Move, an additional accolade for the school includes their receiving the Dr. Bette M. Stephenson award this past year which is an award given to a school that demonstrates leadership, proactive initiatives, positive attitude and sincere efforts to help every child succeed. As well, the school must also be making effective use of the EQAO data and show evidence from other sources to enhance and support student achievement. Again Soehner ascribes the school’s success to the continuous work of the staff. “Our staff works tirelessly to engage and support each and every student at St. James,” Soehner said. “Every single day we collectively focus on the belief that everything we do is for the success of all of our students and that every single child matters.”
St. James is the second school in two years from the Sudbury Catholic District School Board to be nominated and selected as a School on the Move as St. Christopher Catholic Elementary was a School on the Move in the 2008-2009 school year.
New Life at St. James School
Students at St. James Catholic Elementary school had the unique opportunity this past month to witness the hatching of baby ducks. Grade 5 student, Danielle Battistelli has a love for ducks so her family offered the school a whole kit including eggs, an incubator and all supplies and equipment needed in order to hatch some duck eggs. The school jumped at this chance to show students the miracle of new life and within a few weeks time the first batch of eggs hatched. Everyday at lunch, Battistelli and her friends set up a demonstration and are available to answer questions regarding the new hatchlings. As well, these students contribute to the morning announcements calling themselves “The Hatchers” and give daily updates on the ducklings. There have been eight ducks born so far and some students were lucky enough to witness the eggs cracking and seeing the ducks emerge. All of the new ducklings have been named and some of these names include Bubbles, Twitter and Chezabell. The Battistelli’s have contributed a few more eggs and when the first set of ducklings are ready to bring back to their house to be raised as pets, there will be a whole new set of ducklings for the students to observe. Grade One teacher Sarah Pappin found her students to be positively amazed by the whole process. “My students were absolutely awestruck when they saw the eggs hatch,” Pappin said. “They were speechless at first, and then couldn’t stop talking about how excited they were to see real baby ducks hatch.” Pappin explained that this was a fantastic opportunity for all the students at St. James to work with community partners, and families and have a hands on experience with new life.
Mr. Winegarden speaks to the students of St. James.
The students at St. James Catholic school had the privilege of having Mr. Winegarten speak to them about some of the barriers of being visually impaired and how goals can be accomplished with “good old hard work and to follow you passion”. He stated that the trick to his success in being the first blind person to work for the Canada Revenue Agency in Sudbury where he was a supervisor has been; “to always do my best and help others. If I can do this then my life is meaningful”