Dear Friends and Families of Colonel Walker School,
We’ve had some tired bodies at school this week after springing forward last weekend, but being weary has not kept Colonel Walker School staff and students from a very busy week of learning and connecting! On Tuesday, students in grades 3 and 4 participated in a dinosaur talk by local paleontologist (and former CWS parent) Jon Noad. This learning was well connected to Grade 3 Science and Grade 4 Social Studies curriculum outcomes, and some of our students even appeared on Global News last night- link to last night’s news story here!
Grade 6s Junior Journalists were also a part of this presentation and watched how the experts do it to hone their own skills. Look for an upcoming news story the grade 6 students are composing for our new school website and that will be published in the Inglewood Community newsletter next month.All CWS families are welcome to attend the symposium mentioned in the news story which will be hosted by the Alberta Paleontological Society this weekend at Mount Royal University. Information about the symposium can be found at this link. There will be a table set up at the symposium and members of the public can bring in fossils they have found or have lying around at home to have them identified by an expert! One of the fossils shared with students yesterday was found by the zoo bridge right here in Inglewood.
This week grade 5 change makers participated in two leadership sessions with Jenn Mireau from Ever Active Schools. These student leaders engaged in social and emotional learning in support of well-being. Grade 5 students will share their learning with the entire CWS school community in the weeks and months ahead. The specific challenge these students have been tasked with is to re-imagine “The Lounge” opposite our school office as a “well-being” space. We are imagining a space that all students can access to regulate, relate and reason throughout the school day. Grade 5 change makers are tasked with ideating, designing, building and prototyping this space, and with gathering feedback from all students, K-6 about what’s working and needs adjusting. We’re excited that these grade 5 student leaders will be with us at the school again next year to carry this learning forward into 2024-25.
As a culmination of this great week of learning, today at school we participated in a mental health assembly hosted by Ms. Leigh’s grade ½ class and Mr. Kearney’s grade 3 class. Our student hosts shared a student generated Land Acknowledgement (posted opposite the office for those who are in the building for conferences next week), we sang O Canada in English, French and Cree, we listened to a story about what we have in common as humans in spite of our beautiful diversity, and we heard students share about who they are, what makes them unique, and what makes each of them love-able. It was beautiful to see students in the audience practice active listening and connect to their peers across the grades (“I love/am good at ____ too!”). At the end of the assembly, students from other classes were already asking if they can volunteer as M/Cs or share their voices, stories and work in upcoming assemblies. All of our students will be ready to share their confidence, bravery and unique and creative talents with you during their dramatic performance on the 13 Blackfoot Moons following our Trickster residency (time TBD on the morning of Friday May 10 at school- mark your calendars!).
Have a wonderful warm weekend- we look forward to seeing many of you at conferences next week prior to a well deserved Spring Break after our last day of classes on March 21.
Warm regards,
Kate Jones
Principal