That’s why Sudbury Catholic Schools is pleased to invite you to register for our upcoming wellness webinar in January. At this webinar, two outstanding guest presenters will tackle this topic and provide coping strategies for dealing with stress.
Alina Rukkila MSW, RSW and Jessie Jones CYW will lead us through an engaging session on dealing with the different types of stress and provide helpful strategies and tips we can incorporate to help us manage it when it happens.
We all know that not all types of stress are bad. Good types of stress can help you focus, ensure you meet your daily challenges, and encourage you to reach specific goals you have for yourself. However, it’s essential to understand the difference between good and harmful types of stress. Over time, a continued strain on the body put on from stress can get the best of you. It’s paramount to identify the causes of daily stress and manage the intensity of these feelings. By knowing healthy coping strategies, we can enjoy life and learn happily.
November 1-7 is Treaties Recognition Week, an important time of year where Ontario students acknowledge and learn about treaties as well as the histories, perspectives, and contributions of First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples.
The Sudbury Catholic District School Board (SCDSB) is celebrating its participation in Treaties Recognition Week. This year, we honour Indigenous histories, perspectives, and contributions through meaningful lessons, presentations, readings, events and celebrations for students and staff at all our schools.
School Highlights
St. John
At St. John Catholic Elementary School, students in Mrs. Galipeau’s class learned about wampum belts in an activity where they could make their own belts out of Lego. Students in Grade 5 and 6 created the 1764 Treaty of Niagara wampum belt. Pictured are Nathan and Olivia, Jaguar students proudly showcasing their class’s completed belt. Wampum belts represent agreements and promises that last “as long as the sun shines and rivers flow”.
On Nov. 2nd, Grade 2 students in Mrs. Child’s class at St. Charles Catholic Elementary School read “Dakota Talks About Treaties.” Afterwards, they created a word web to describe what the word “treaty” means. Also, reading a story was Ms. Trudeau and Ms. D’Angelo’s class! “A Family Cookout” was read to help students explore measuring objects. Afterwards, Ms. Trudeau led an engaging lesson on making bannock where students used their knowledge in a real-life context. However, reading wasn’t the only popular activity. Mrs. Blakely’s grade 1 class learned all about the medicine wheel, smudged, made wampum belts and created their very own classroom treaty.
At St. David, a school-wide activity was implemented in preparation for the week. The Grade 5 class mapped the forested area in an educational exercise that touched on Indigenous identity, history, and ways of being. In an abundance of activities, students learned about treaties, promises, wampum belts and what it means to be indigenous. The school listened to “The Drum Calls Softly” and students created versions of the artwork in the video.
Over at Pius, Treaty Recognition Week was in full force. The school’s Grade 6 students took part in a lesson that included constructing their own Wampum commitment string. Wampum commitment string symbolizes an agreement of respect and peace. Collectively, all the strings will attach and form a family circle to honour Treaty Week.
To commemorate Treaty Week, the students in Grade 2/3 FI at St. James explored the significance of wampum belts as representations of promises that were made to last. They recreated the Treaty of Niagara wampum belt with Legos and other materials and mapped out some of our province’s treaties.
St. Benedict’s kicked off Treaty Recognition Week with Smudging available to students and staff. Classes participated in the Treaty Awareness dialogue. For example, Treaty is ‘Legally Binding’ and that there is also a ‘Sacred Element’ to the agreements. In addition, the school’s Life Skills Class learned and designed a Wampum Treaty Belt of their choosing. Tobacco was offered to our Indigenous Support Worker, Ms. Agowissa, for knowledge sharing. “We Are All Treaty People and are in the Robinson Huron Treaty region.”
Other highlights included secondary students participating in the Robinson Huron Treaty “Treaty Talks with Tomorrow’s Leaders”. Students were able to listen to different Ogimaak/Chiefs from RHT communities share treaty knowledge past, present and future about ‘Gweksijigewin’ (making things right). This knowledge was applied on Friday, Nov. 5th, with presentations from the students.
It truly is very exciting to see what beautiful things our schools are doing to honour this essential part of the learning experience. Thank you to all our staff and community leaders, who took the time to capture and share some of the many wonderful things they were able to participate in this week. For more school activity updates, check out Indigenous Education SCDSB.
We are pleased to announce that the SCDSB’s Monday, Nov. 19th PA day is multi-themed. A variety of professional learning opportunities will be provided including topics such as mathematics, literacy, mental health and wellbeing, etc.
They just submitted their video to smash a world record!
Skills Ontario is excited to announce a new GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS attempt event. We would like to invite everyone to participate in making history by helping them to break the record for Largest Online Video Chain of People Passing and Using a Screwdriver!
The call went out yesterday to Sudbury Catholic staff and students to help Skills Ontario. Both staff and students have been eagerly participating. Kent MacNeill, remote learning teacher assigned the challenge to all his grade 7 & 8 science students!
Anyone of any age, across the province can join the fun! Skills Ontario’s minimum goal is to receive 251 individual video submissions.
All participants must sign a photo/video release form when uploading their video. Participants 18 years and younger must have a parent/guardian sign the form.
All participants will be added into a draw for a chance to win 1 of 20 $50 prizes!
Principal Kuzenko and the team at St. Benedict C.S.S were on a mission in February to bring some positivity into the building. They created the 28 Day Stay Strong Order! Every day was a special theme and thoughtful giveaways for each week. The 28 DAY STAY STRONG ORDER had an incredible impact on the school community and lifted the spirits of everyone in the building.
The Sudbury Catholic District School Board is proud to announce that we will be providing several new summer learning opportunities this year. We are now accepting registration for our Summer e-Learning Courses for secondary students. There will be several other learning opportunities offered this summer through the school board; this is just the first group of learning opportunities available.
Summer e-Learning Courses for Secondary Students
Summer e-Learning courses are full-credit courses available to students who are currently registered in grades 9-12. These courses are taught by qualified Ontario Teachers across the province. These courses are fully online and typically consist of a blend of online lessons and independent work. Students who are successful in a summer e-Learning course typically commit to working 4-6 hours a day from Monday-Friday for the 4 weeks that the summer course is offered. Secondary Summer e-Learning courses cover the same range of content that is typically covered during a full semester course in a condensed timeline.
Courses are offered in English, Math, Religion, Science, Social Studies, and the Humanities for students currently in grades 9-12.
The Sudbury Catholic District School board will be offering Grade 11 Religion (HRT3M), Grade 12 Religion (HRE4M), and Careers/Civics (CHV2O/GLC2O). Co-op may also be available in some circumstances.
Students must have the prerequisites to register for a course over the summer. For more information about specific courses, please contact the guidance contact at your school:
St. Benedict hosted 200 grade 5 and 6 students from St. David School, Holy Cross School and St. Francis School for their Winter Fun Day on January 29, 2020. Students took part in snow soccer, tug of war, crazy carpet relays, chase the chicken, cooperative games and Indigenous Teachings.
Secondary students from all four
secondary schools were able to participate in the first ever SCDSB Model UN
Conference hosted at St. Charles College. The event was an opportunity for
local and international students to come together and unpack an issue from an
international perspective.
Approximately 75 students participated
in this first-ever event! Students worked to find possible solutions within the
United Nations framework to resolve the global human trafficking crisis. The
event leveraged diversity and encouraged participants to develop global
citizenship skills!
Students were awarded in the following
categories:
Best Delegates: Liam Couisneau (St. Charles College) and Rosaria Nero (St. Benedict)
Honourable mentions: Madison Penrose (Bishop Alexander Carter) and Amy Godin (Marymount Academy)
Best international delegates: Ryan Dinh (St. Charles College) and Zihao Wang (St. Benedict)
attempt event. We would like to invite everyone to participate in making history by helping them to break the record for Largest Online Video Chain of People Passing and Using a Screwdriver!
