Education Week kicks off in Shelburne Monday night

April 29, 2016 · 0 Comments

Monday marks the start of Education Week and the Upper Grand District School Board is kicking off the board-wide initiative in style right here in Shelburne on Monday night.

The public is invited to come out to Centre Dufferin District High School (CDDHS) at 7 p.m. on May 2, for a celebration pooling the talents of both CDDHS and Hyland Heights Elementary School.

Designated by the Ministry of Education as a time to “celebrate our accomplishments and reflect on new and exciting tasks ahead,” Upper Grand has put their own spin on the event with the theme of “Learn, Lead, Inspire…Together.”

And that’s just what these two local schools are doing.

“We try to change it up every year, selecting schools from different areas throughout Wellington and Dufferin County, but this year we decided to do something quite different,” says Upper Grand’s Sue Krueger of the decision to have an elementary school and secondary school host the celebration together. “Historically speaking, sometimes when we offer it at a secondary school, we don’t get quite the same turnout as we do at elementary schools. Elementary is always a lot more popular, mainly because of the age of the kids. Usually the parents have to take them there, or they know more about what is going on. Secondary students are a little bit quieter about what they are doing at school.”

But, there will be no time to be quiet about it on Monday night. There will be a lot to see and do at the ceremony, including musical performances from Hyland Heights students, a performance of Cinderella from CDDHS students, and open houses at both schools.

“This is an opportunity for us to open up our schools and showcase the schools themselves, what the students are working on and what they are doing,” says Ms. Krueger. “Each school [throughout the Board] will be doing their own types of events, so there will be things like book fairs and science fairs, and even operettas.

“This particular theme of ‘Learn, Lead, Inspire…Together’ is part of our mission and vision statement for 2015 – 2018 that we are sharing with our community, and it will be part of our guiding principles: leading with confidence, learning through collaboration, and inspiring all voices.”

By Brock Weir