Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Better Together
Since 2007, St. James-Assiniboia School Division has been hosting a Youth Forum for staff and students to raise awareness of local and global issues and to promote sustainability, citizenship, student voice, social justice and action. Together, we have collaborated on and shared several initiatives that focus on making our world a better place. Our school division has recognized social justice and citizenship as integral values for students to develop in our Strategic Plan. Students and staff have been encouraged to be innovative and have developed several creative projects and activities to make a difference.
At this year’s Youth Forum, our 15 elementary schools
gathered to listen to and interact with local organizations to discuss local
and global initiatives and to plan for action. The collective vision to improve
our world and the spirit of collaboration among the participants was inspiring
and the idea to create a collaborative project with all of the schools began to
develop. Principals were already involved in Professional Learning Communities
with each other, and we began to imagine an exciting way to highlight our
unique schools and to promote collaboration using music and technology.
For this project, we enrolled all of the Principals from
each of our elementary schools to collaborate with students to develop a
statement to represent their school. We then arranged to visit each school to
record student leaders saying their school statements. A melody was created
around their voices and we developed a chorus to unite all of the ideas. We
taught the chorus sections and bridge section to student singers and recorded
them as a collaborative sing-along.
As we visited each school, we collected images to create a
video to accompany our original song. Students and staff were asked what images
should be collected to represent their unique school communities. These images
were then arranged to give a visual representation of the school statements to
music. A blog-site was created to launch our special song project and to give
students a forum to interact, share and collaborate with others.
This project was a true representation of collaboration and
student voice in action. All of the schools enjoyed being part of the project
and felt like they were involved
in the creative process of an authentic learning experience.
Although each school has a unique vision and community, we recognize the
importance of sharing ideas and working together to provide meaningful, safe
and caring educational environments so that all of our students are prepared to
become respectful and responsible citizens.
Our responsibility…
To be the best that we can be…
To grow and learn and dare to dream…
We’re better together.
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