École Leila North Community Report

YEAR IN REVIEW Our Community Report this year will focus on the highlights, initiatives and activities that impact our school community in so many positive ways.

I would like to thank those of you who participated in our SPECIAL POINTS OF “ThoughtStream” survey. It has led us to focus on improving our com- INTEREST munication with our families as most, if not all, of the thoughts for im-  Excelling at Leila provement at École Leila are already in place currently. The survey al- lowed us to reflect on why our parents are not aware that their son or  Philanthropy daughter are actively participating in various activities/programs  Experiential Learning throughout the year.  Student Support As you read through our highlights , I know some of you are going to ask, “what about the academics”? We can say we are very proud of how  Technology well our students do in all areas of the provincial curriculum. We have  Sustainability also tracked our students’ grades after they enter High School and can  Aboriginal education say with confidence they continue to do very well, maintaining the grades they achieved at École Leila North.

I hope this report will allow you to see all of the great things that our students have done this year! EXCELLING AT LEILA

 Divisional boys Volleyball reach the semi-finals

 Divisional boys Basketball provincial runners up

 Divisional boys coach Pam Godfredsen honoured as Junior High Coach of the Year

 Leila North’s Track and Field capture 2nd place in Athletics Man- itoba

 Mrs. Schioler, Mr. Huynh, Mrs. Hanson and Mrs. Biggar have 8 students published and winners of the Short Story Creative Writing contest

Every student that attends École Leila North has an opportunity to be involved in inter-scholastic athletics with our divisional no-cut policy

OUR SUPPORT TEAM ADDRESSING STUDENT NEEDS

Currently at Ecole Leila North we have 3 English Learning Support  Our students participate in a yearly survey called "Tell Them From Me”. Teachers and a half time French This survey collates data and reports back to our school. The survey looks Immersion Learning Support. Along at social-emotional outcomes, academic outcomes and student engage- with our two Guidance Counsellors we have a school Social Worker that ment. We have shared the results with students and it has impacted how provides support for our students we treat our community. and families .We also have a school Psychologist that evaluates educa-  Our counselling team worked at addressing student needs, making stress tional needs. Our Psychologist and balls with classes, and having students post positive messages on lockers Social worker are with us 2 days a for students to read at break. Making students aware of Mental Health week. Our Speech and Language Week and celebrating each day as a school wide event was another initia- professional is here 1 day a week. tive counsellors took on. We believe in being pro-active in middle school. We want our stu-  One of our priorities has always been, and will continue to be having stu- dents to feel confident to be able to dent voices heard. As in past years students take on their own initiatives, speak to any adult in the building for such as removing water bottles and drink machines from the school. We support. We have our support team in classrooms so students feel very celebrate these events and make sure our student body knows we are lis- comfortable approaching them for tening to them. We use the language “ You said this, we did this”. help. As we say that we also believe in building resiliency in our students  Our student “True Colors Video” was initiated by our student ambassa- and help support them in finding dors celebrating our schools acceptance and tolerance of everyone. ways to work through their prob- lems rather than solving them our-  We are always looking at reducing any stress that students may feel about selves. going to school. We know leaving a school where you are comfortable to go to another can be a very stressful experience so we put a lot of effort in to transitioning our student in grade 5 to 6 and our students in grade 8 to 9. Each of these transitions has involved students spending time at the new schools while experiencing “A Day in the Life” school was in progress. 2 GIVING BACK TO OUR COMMUNITY: FIRE-HALL GAR- DEN Our Fire Hall garden was created in coop- eration with our neighbors at the fire hall. We use this gar- den as an extension of curriculum in our vocational arts pro- grams; (specifically, our foods and nutri-

Grade eights camping at Hecla tion program and our consumer program). The students prepare EXPERIENTAL LEARNING the garden, plant the  Our students and staff held a Christmas Challenge Hockey game, vegetables , and weed the premise was to have fun but also expose our students to a live it throughout the hockey game as many had not seen one before. year. This past year  Our grade 8 students participate in dissections in their science cur- we harvested the pro- riculum but we also take these classes to the St. Boniface Research Center to do hands on work in the youth lab. duce for use in our own kitchens but also  The school division supports our cooperative program with the Art Gallery in which an Artist in Residence works with donated over 90 classes and the teachers at the Art Gallery. Students are bused to pounds to Winnipeg the Art Gallery once a cycle in the a.m. for 10 weeks, we had 6 clas- Harvest. ses participate in this program this year.

 We had 4 classes go on camping excursions this year. A grade 7 group over nighted at Birds Hill Park and the grade 8’s spent 3 days at Hecla both setting up camp and cooking food in the wilderness. For most students this was their first camping experience .

 We took 36 students on our annual Quebec trip this year, again connecting their immersion language to French culture beyond our walls.

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CONTINUING TO BE SUSTAINABLE

 We added 2 more water bottle filling station fountains and continue to sell water bottles for $2 to support sustainability

 We continue to supply each classroom with compostable bins to reduce our waste and add to the divisional biovator which produces fertilizer for our gardens

 Mr. Roy’s class continues to pick up paper products to recycle throughout the school once a cycle, this material is then picked up by Emterra and recycled.

 We added aluminum and plastic recyclable bins throughout school yard to continue to reduce our waste.

**Although one of our focuses is on technology our library, classrooms and student book club still spent TEN times the amount on books

TECHNOLOGY AT ÉCOLE LEILA NORTH

 Every classroom is equipped with a mounted projector and 3-4 desktop computers.

 Every teacher has been supplied an I-Pad to work with their class

 We have 2 class sets of I-Pod touches for students to access, along with many recording devices and green screen technology.

 8 Mimeos are located in the school (mobile smart boards).

 Wireless access points are located throughout the school so stu- dents can also use their handheld technology when given permission or on their own time.

 Our T.V. in the front of the school shows previous events such as choir concerts, games and announcements all run by student volun-

ABORIGINAL EDUCATION AT LEILA

One of our divisional priorities is making sure we are enriching our students lives and celebrating the aboriginal culture.

 Each year we support Urban Circle by hosting Educational Assistant candidates'. This year our candidates taught our classes the history and celebrated by organizing a school wide Powwow. Also leading a number of smudges at our outdoor sharing circle.

 We had a group of students attending the annual “Keeping Balance Conference” and participating in aboriginal storytelling at the Forks

 Kevin Lamoureux , University of Winnipeg Professor, presented to our staff at a professional development day on why aboriginal education is important in every school. He also presented to all of our grade six students.

 We hosted an Aboriginal Theatre group working in-house with a grade six class lead- 4 ing up to a performance at the end at MYPT. PHILANTHROPY

At École Leila North we feel it is important for our students to be thankful for what we have here but also to gain a sense of what else is going on in the world around them. In saying this we also do not want our expectations on helping others to become a burden on our own community so we try and spread out our philanthropy throughout the year and look at initiatives that don’t always require money in return.

 “Change for Brains” was a divisional initiative along with Mondetta to help a school in Kamwokya, Uganda.

 Mr. Johnsons’ class raised over $800.00 selling hot chocolate and cookies for the Typhoon victims.

 We had a quick turn around fundraiser for the Typhoon Haiyan survivors that in- clude profits from our pizza sales

 Mrs. Yevtushenko's class held their annual “Buy a Brick “campaign to continue building a school in Dadaab Refugee Camp

With all of our community’s generosity, we generated 500lbs of non- perishable food and over $6000 that has gone to the various charities

ENGAGING OUR COMMUNITY

 We have hosted a number of Family Fitness nights to promote healthy activity through those cold winter months

 At any time during the day or evening you can see community members sitting on logs in the beginnings of our outdoor class- room.

 Our counselling team hoisted a tea/coffee drop in information session for parents at student leds

 Our School newsletters are produced by our journalism club ran by Mrs. Wiebe, these newsletter continue expand with more and more information on what is happening at the school

 We have tried to also provide evenings throughout the year for parents to come in and engage in dialogue around certain topics that they might need more information about

 We have many student that are at school before the start of the day, we hope that as soon as students enter the school they are ready to be engaged in some type of activity. Thus we have opened our library, fitness room, dance studio, multi purpose room and many classrooms for student to find an activity to be involved in. 5

LEARNING OUTSIDE OF THE CLASSROOM BY THE NUMBERS  Our outdoor space continues to improve with students tak-  191 Students enrolled ing ownership for all of trees that have been newly planted in band (through our Hydro Grant)  105 Students in- volved in running our  Our partnership with the Fire Hall continues, with students production planting and harvesting the garden . We donated to Winni- peg Harvest this year and used numerous fresh goods in our  We had the following Foods program. students involved in school athletics this  Continued expansion of curriculum by visiting places like the year: HSC Science Lab, Aviation Center, MB Museum, Art Gallery, 20 students in X-Country Winnipeg Library, The Forks, St. Boniface Museum, House, , Deer Meadow Farms, Assiniboine 150 in Volleyball Park, Birds Hill Park, Lower , MB Sports Hall of 80 in Indoor Track Fame, MTs Center, MTYP, Harbour View, Franco MB, Oak 150 in Basketball Hammock Marsh, Red River College which resulted in our students having hands on activities 55 times this year and 100 in Track and filed because of Seven Oaks School Division support at no extra 150 in Badminton cost to our families.

175 in Softball  All of our grade six classes attended a Goldeyes game out of 12 in Marathon club, reg- the 180 students 112 had never been to a Goldeyes game be- istered at no cost to stu- fore. dents  We had 22 students involved in Career Trek, visiting Univer- 50 in cricket sity of Winnipeg, and Red River college exploring

30 in rugby different careers.

60 Involved in our am-  Another exceptional year of talent showcased at our talent bassador program show, this year we had acts perform.

 7 of our students started our GSA