St. Patrick's Blog Week of May 19th, 2015

St. Patrick's Blog

Week of May 19th, 2015

Unity Week - Oaxaca, Mexico - Student and Staff Visit

We are coming off a very busy “Unity Week” at St. Patrick’s Intermediate.  From May 8th to 15th, we had over 30 students and staff visiting from Oaxaca (pronounced w ah - h ah - k ah ), Mexico.  We began the week with a commissioning ceremony, using the Board Unity Cross as a symbol of the friendship between our two groups.  The Mexican students (all accomplished dancers!) had been working with our students on video productions over Skype since the beginning of the year.  The visit gave them the opportunity to finalize their video work collaboratively, in person.  As part of the visit, we were able to see the Oaxacan dancers perform at the Ottawa Tulip Festival and in our auditorium.  The visitors and their hosts also took part in our International Lunch, travelled to Montreal, and visited the Bytown Museum and watched Question Period in the House of Commons.  It was a exhausting but fruitful week as we learned about education in Oaxaca, and shared our experiences of school here in Ottawa.  We are looking forward to additional opportunities to collaborate with the Mexican students.

Student Success Visit

On May 12th, the students and staff at St. Patrick’s hosted a Student Success Visit at the school.  This was an opportunity for superintendents and coordinating staff from the school board to tour through classrooms to analyze student learning.  The feedback from the group was very good - we were able to share the many different initiatives happening at St. Pat’s, and a number of students shared their perspective on the strong learning opportunities with which they are provided.

Co-Curricular Success at St. Pat’s

Over the past week we have had a number of opportunities to be proud of our students’ accomplishments at the school board level.  We had two teams participate in the Let’s Talk Science Challenge last week with both groups showing up some of the larger high schools!  We also had a repeat in our success at the Chess Tournament this year.  For the second year in a row, St. Pat’s has brought home the designation of top school in the board.  Congratulations to all of the students involved, and we appreciate the support of our Staff coaches/mentors in these activities.

Have a great week;

Sean Kelly