St. Joseph Catholic Elementary School staff and students walked over to St. Boniventure Church to celebrate Ash Wednesday Mass on March 5th. Father Krzysztof Niewinski and the students/staff are pictured outside the church. The students celebrate mass the first Wednesday of the month. The community have the opportunity of a weekday Mass and the students enjoy celebrating with them.
Category: Community
BACCSS Celebrates World Wildlife Day
Bishop Alexander Carter Catholic Secondary School students participated in a Global Project through the Hivees organization. In order to recognize the importance of March 3, the official World Wildlife Day, students created informational posters to spread awareness in the school about the issues surrounding the world’s flora and fauna. They then braved the cold to form the letters WWD, while holding up their posters. These photos were sent to Hivees who then compiled all pictures and videos globally into one compilation for the students to view.
St. James Community, Care and Culture Club Supports Fellow Student
The students at St. James Catholic Elementary School demonstrated the Catholic virtue of compassion recently. Logan Lariviere, a low vision student, travelled to Ottawa to be fitted for his new technological glasses. The “Community, Care and Culture” club choose to sell candy grams for Valentine’s Day and have a coin collection to help Logan and his parents purchase his much needed and expensive glasses. The whole school gave generously and, during our Olympic spirit day, Logan was presented with a cheque by teacher Tammy Lanci.
Jersey Day at St. Benedict
Students and staff at St. Benedict Catholic Elementary School recently donned their favorite sports jersey to attend their pep rally and celebrate jersey day. Saturday November 30th is “Sports Day in Canada”, and what better way than to wear favorite sport’s team jersey and have a raucous pep rally. The pep rally highlighted the fall sports season with all of its great successes as well as introducing the slate of winter sports.
Holy Cross Students Connecting with Ryan Hreljac
On Tuesday, November 19th, the students in teacher Shanna Whalen’s Grade 2/3 class, Eva Scola’s class at Holy Cross Catholic Elementary School, engaged in a Skype session with Ryan Hreljac, the founder of Ryan’s Well. The students are part of the School Challenge that is organized by the foundation. Their goal is to raise money to help build a well, as well as latrines, for Haiti. After watching the Ryan’s Well documentary, and learning about Ryan’s amazing dedication toward bringing clean water to Africa, the students were very excited to have the chance to talk to Ryan through Skype. They had the opportunity to ask Ryan whatever questions they wanted during the half hour session. One student, Mia Maurice, asked if she could ask Santa for money for the well. It was clear by his expression and response, that he was touched by this selfless act. Ryan was very supportive of the students, and encouraged them to choose a cause that they are passionate about, and try to make a difference. He does not consider himself to be a hero, but we do, and we are looking forward help create justice as well.
A photo taken of Ryan shortly after our Skype session.
St. James Bears Give School a “Bear” Hug
St. James students, staff, and community partners literally formed a human circle around their school and gave it a hug. The human circle symbolizes friendships, inclusiveness, respect, faith, and community. We are all in this building together and we need to always show in our actions that we are a St. James family. To show that we care and that we are a Safe Catholic School community we literally gave our school a St. James Bear Hug!
A ‘Different” Movember at Holy Cross
During the month of November, several of Holy Cross teacher Tania Fay’s grade 2 students asked why they were seeing so many men with moustaches, and what the term Movember meant. Fay thought this would be a great learning opportunity for her students to discuss the importance of community initiatives. As the school often has different fundraisers throughout the year, several for cancer organizations, the class talked about how important it is to makes those in their own community happy by always trying to be supportive however they can. This discussion led to their own Movember initiative. Fay asked students in the grade three class to help the grade two students write stories about how they all suddenly grew moustaches. On Thursday, November 28, the two classes got together and shared their stories with each other – all while touting their own Movember ‘staches. “It was a great teaching opportunity that I couldn’t pass up,” explained Fay. “Our students are so observant of the world around them – and when they began noticing many moustaches sprouting on their dads’ faces, we were able to turn that into a fun discussion, a peer-to peer learning moment and a great way to show them the important of giving back and supporting one’s own community!”
Celebrating Ste. Catherine at St. John
On Monday, November 25th, St. John Catholic Elementary School French Immersion students celebrated the tradition of Ste-Catherine. The students celebrated by making taffy with their families and teachers.
Sudbury Catholic Teacher Wins Teacher of the Year from the Learning Disabilities Association of Sudbury (LDAS)
It comes as no surprise to those who work with her, to find out that Sudbury Catholic teacher Jennifer Connelly is the recipient of this year’s Learning Disabilities Association of Sudbury (LDAS) teacher of the year award. As the Assistive Technology teacher, Connelly works with students from kindergarten to grade 12, along with their teachers and special education team. Connelly has been a teacher for 8 years, in her current role for 3 years and is often in high demand as a technology teacher. As well, as she is also an Apple Distinguished Educator and also sits on the Board of Apple Distinguished Educators and is also an Apple Certified Trainer. As a result of this position, she has travelled to many countries including the US and Ireland to take part in Apple’s international conferences.
As the Sudbury Catholic assistive technology teacher, Connelly sees technology as a tool that helps students be successful in their learning. When asked, Connelly is quick to recognize that “it is through the hard work and dedication of the entire special education team, that Sudbury Catholic has been able to meet the needs of their students.” With leadership from Superintendent Rossella Bagnato, Connelly has seen the positive changes assistive technology has instilled in the students.
Sudbury Catholic Special Education Consultant Christina Raso explains, “Jennifer is such a dedicated and passionate teacher, and her love of technology is quite evident in her constant pursuit of innovative and exciting programs and software/hardware to support the success of our students. We are very fortunate to have her be a part of the special education team at Sudbury Catholic and know that she is making a positive difference in the lives of our students every single day.”
As a result of her constant pursuit of new ways to support student learning, Connelly often is given the opportunity to be a beta-tester for new products and applications to see if they might work for the Sudbury Catholic students.
“I am honoured and humbled to receive this award,” Connelly said” “I see this more as an award for our entire special education team at Sudbury Catholic for all of our hard work and love for teaching.”