Report to Community A Year of Many Firsts

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Report to Community

A Year of Many Firsts

Message from the Principal

Internships Projects Exhibitions

Social Justice

Indigenous Perspectives

Mental Health

Sustainability & Science

Outdoor Education

Community & Music

Graduation

To say that this year started with a big bang would not be an exaggeration. The ‘cinder block breaking’ physics experiment certainly caught the students’ attention and demonstrated that you can definitely have fun with science. This set the ‘work hard-play hard’ tone for the year, as well as highlighted our transition to taking the advanced sciences in-house. In addition to our continued focus on Relationships, Relevance, and Rigor, through advisory, many excellent internships, school-based projects, and exhibitions, in our 8th year here in the Seven Oaks School Division there were many additional noteworthy ‘firsts’. We had our first Seven Oaks Met School alumni graduate from University; our largest graduating class (the first ever double advisory graduation); a record breaking amount of scholarships awarded; our first Student Parliament and Prime Minister/Metster (grade 12 student James); a new music group and a debate club; a second location open at Maples Met; a fully functioning and amazing family ambassador group; and a spectacular year in the area of social justice. But where we truly excelled this year was with the ‘Leaving to Learn’ opportunities we presented to our students as we worked towards a number of issues near-and-dear to our hearts: social justice, indigenous perspectives, mental health, sustainability, outdoor education, and fostering community.

What’s Inside

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2016-2017 REPORT TO COMMUNITY

Message from the Principal - Ikigai

Once we settled into our new building, we decided to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. With a focus this

year on Ikigai - to find one’s purpose through a deep and lengthy search of self (which incorporates that which you love,

that which the world needs, that which you can be paid for, and that which you are good at), our hope is to create

transformative citizens. Looking at our priorities from this long-term perspective, we were able to boil them down to

three important areas: to help students better recognize their own needs, as well as the needs of their community and

their world; to best prepare students for their future and a world that is constantly changing, by focusing on essential

skills and critical thinking; and to foster community (on many levels) so both our students and the greater good benefit.

By helping students better recognize their own needs, as well as the needs of their community and their world, we

believe they will start to understand themselves better and ask deeper questions (like what problems they want to

solve), in addition to knowing how to effect meaningful change. This will lead to more authentic learning taking place

where students can begin to design a world in which they want to live. Over the course of their four years at the Met

School, from their first ‘Who am I?’ project to their final Senior-Thesis Project, we hope to observe: students’ finding a

sense of belonging and identity, a feeling of worth, and their place in the world; the demonstration of positive values

and healthy relationships; and that they become participatory citizens at minimum - transformative ones at best. We

believe this will lead to a greater sense of self and understanding and empathy for the world around them. With this in

mind, we had a strong focus on social justice, indigenous perspectives, and mental health, fostering one of the key

pillars of our school – relevance – by making our student work as meaningful and engaging as possible.

To best prepare students for their future and a world that is constantly changing, we believe it is important to focus on

essential skills and critical thinking. Internships, school-based projects, and exhibitions play a key role in working towards

this and by the time students graduate, our hope is that they will be able to demonstrate employability skills and 21st

century skills, both for their own and for society’s well-being. We believe a focus on the 8Cs - creativity, connectivity,

communication, critical thinking, collaboration, citizenship, career goals, and character - will help best prepare them for

an unknown future. As such, sustainability, science, and outdoor ‘land-based’ education were top-of-mind this year, and

will be for years to come and we believe this focus will help us with the second pillar of our school – increased rigor in

student work.

With our goal of fostering community this year we were able to see students make deeper connections to the world

around them with the hope that both our students and the greater good can benefit. We approached improving

relationships and collaborating with our community in a multi-faceted way, from within our four walls - starting with our

free, student-run, Healthy Start Breakfast Program - to the city at large, by hosting our first Senior Thesis Project

Community Needs Fair. Spanning from divisional collaboration with multiple schools to our local post-secondary

institutions, we also had alumni more involved than ever before. Our very own Met School Vibe acapella group had four

performances this year including at our first ever Coffeehouse. And of course our mentors play an invaluable role in all

of this, and even though we do our best thank them every year at our Mentor Appreciation Pancake Breakfast, we know

we can never truly thank them enough for all the hard work they do with our students. As a school that has

relationships as the third of its key foundations, fostering community comes from genuine and authentic place for the

benefit of all parties involved.

As you can see, our three pillars – relationships, relevance, and rigor – continue to permeate

everything that we do here at the Met School. It has been another memorable year, with my

last advisory graduating, and we can’t wait for even bigger and better things to come next

year. Have a great summer

Nancy Janelle

Principal

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Internships, School-Based Projects, & Exhibitions

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Social Justice This year was a remarkable one in the area of social justice, with two students taking leadership roles in the Met School Justice League on big projects: the care packages for the homeless, and the #FearLessLoveMore campaign. Hilary, in grade 11, spearheaded the creation of the care packages, through a partnership with the RBC ‘Make 150 Count’ campaign. She was able to collaborate with grade 10 student, Shanti, and her Imagine ACTion grant, together with support from the new Save-on-Foods. They even learned how to knit warm scarves from Jasmine and Cat in grade 9, and in the end were able to make 50 well-loaded care packages just in time for Christmas. The #FearLessLoveMore campaign to combat rising Islamophobia, the senior-thesis project of grade 12 student Palvi, was very comprehensive and impactful. It involved outreach and presentations to a dozen schools (including a Hutterite colony), collaboration with the Syrian refuges at the Adult Learning Center, a youth-led rally with over 500 students that shut down Portage Ave, over 400 signed petitions to have the Safe Third Country Agreement rescinded, and over $500 raised for the White Helmets, a non-profit group helping with search and rescue operations in Syria. In addition to all this, we still had our annual food and toy drive, this year sending the supplies up to Pauingassi First Nation, and we continued to sponsor the education of our two students in Kampala, Uganda through our partnership with the Mondetta Charity Foundation. Our students formed a cohort in the yearlong ‘Educating for Action Human Rights Workshops’ through the Manitoba Teachers’ Society, they presented at a UNESCO conference, went to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, attended the Forum for Young Canadians in Ottawa, and partnered with Value Village, Koats for Kids, Winnipeg Harvest, and Siloam Mission.

The focus on Social Justice, Indigenous Perspectives, and Mental Health at the Seven Oaks Met

School is intentional as they all play a very important role in helping students better recognize their

own needs, as well as the needs of their community and their world.

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Indigenous Perspectives Here at the Seven Oaks Met School we continue to integrate Indigenous Perspectives into our everyday routines. We believe it is important to go beyond doing this as a tokenistic measure, as we see it as one of crucial steps needed by our nation for authentic truth, reconciliation, and decolonization to occur. We started the year with a focus on Orange Shirt Day where every student in the school engaged in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Recommendations and was asked to commit to three things they would do as part of their own Personal Reconciliation Action Plan. This has become part of our framework as a school moving forward, from smaller everyday actions, to larger more impactful ones. On a larger whole-school scale, we had the opportunity, not only to have our entire school participate in the Walk a Mile in Our Moccasins’ Simulation (aka the blanket activity), but to have our Met School families be a part of this important dialogue about the impact of colonization on Indigenous Peoples. Some of our students were also able to go to a sweat lodge, participate in the Manito- Ahbee Festival, be a part of the Seven Oaks School Division Graduation Pow Wow, and more. This only touches on the beginning of our journey towards Truth and Reconciliation that we are on as a school. We have plenty of exciting new endeavors planned for next year as we work towards decolonization, including a mural on the ‘United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples’, an acknowledgment that we are on Treaty One Territory, and a memorial to the victims of Residential Schools. So keep your eyes open for what is to come!

Mental Health

The increased focus on Mental Health was something we saw as a necessary piece of the puzzle in properly caring for our students. February was Mental Health Month, a project of grade 10 student Aurora, with presentations once a week from mental health professionals. The month ended with a whole school Wellness Day where students did yoga, practiced mindfulness and a variety of other activities. This day was so successful that we have decided to incorporate the concept into our yearly routine by having at least one Wellness Day a semester moving forward. We are already looking forward to Zumba and more yoga!

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Sustainability & Science In a constantly changing world we believe essential skills and critical thinking, especially in the areas of sustainability, science, and outdoor land-based education, will best help prepare our students for an unknown future. Taking all our advanced sciences in house by September 2017, this year was a trial run with Biology and Physics. While we had our annual science fair again this year, we really took things up a notch with multiple dissections, physics experiments, and ecosystem studies. Our students were also able to take a virtual tour of the National Microbiology Lab, participate in the Red River College Biotechnology Program, and study breakthroughs in Astronomy at the University of Manitoba Planetarium. ‘Leaving to Learn’ whenever possible, especially in the area of sustainability, was where we truly excelled this year. Our students presented at the Youth Encouraging Sustainability (YES) and the Learning for a Sustainable Future (LSF) conferences, fostered a relationship with Recycle Everywhere, as well as had sustainability outings connected to physics and solar energy to places like Manitoba Hydro and Solar Solutions. Once again, our grade 10s went on their annual trip to Ottawa through Encounters with Canada to study Ecology and the Environment with experts in the field. Students also had the chance to learn about different areas of sustainability through their school-based projects; exploring hydroponics to grow organic tea, creating a stationary bicycle to charge a cell phone, and experimenting with wind power. Our Education for Sustainable Development/Physics student group began the leg work, with a LSF grant, to learn about and build solar panels, with the ultimate goal of being an ‘off-grid’ sustainable building, deriving all of our energy from wind and solar panels.

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Outdoor Education Outdoor education plays a key role in connecting students to their physical world and land-based education is also crucial to incorporating Indigenous Perspectives. As such this plays a role in our yearly programing, including our annual whole school fall, winter, and spring outings to Birds Hill Park, Harborview, and Assiniboine Park respectively, which continue to remain a school tradition. This year was our first annual grade 9 camping trip to Camp Arnes and grade 12 camping trip to Riding Mountain National Park. We utilized our outdoor classroom whenever possible, which has been much improved through Patrick’s grade 10 project, which saw him build garden beds in collaboration with students in Garden City Collegiate’s woods class. As a staff, we are looking forward to sharing our newly gained knowledge with the students from our last staff professional development day at the Fort Whyte Center where we learned how to do water monitoring in our local waterways. This is the next step in getting students more connected to the land around them and be better prepared to play a role in the protection of it and their future.

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Fostering community was a big focus this year, as we aim for students’ to make deeper connections to the world and

people around them. On a school level, our Heathy Start Breakfast Program remains a huge success, as does our GSA

(run by grade 12 student Finn), our grade 9 run Met Mart, the bake sales & fundraisers, Student Ambassador Group,

Spirit Week, and of course our epic Halloween celebrations. Having our first student government, debate club, grad

committee, also played a big role in giving students more voice in the school. Outside of the school we focused on

strengthening our connections with: our alumni, some of them are our mentors now; our families, at our annual

Family BBQ and Awards Night (and we now have an fully functioning Family Ambassador cohort); our mentors, with

the Senior Thesis Project Community Needs Fair and Mentor Appreciation Pancake Breakfast; other schools in our

division, especially the Maples Met and Garden City Collegiate; and our post-secondary institutions, though the

University of Winnipeg High School Enrichment Program and the After School Leaders Program at Red River College.

Fostering Community

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Perhaps where we made the biggest strides this year in fostering

community was through the power of music. With our first ever

Coffeehouse, a grad fundraiser showcasing student talent organized

by grade 12 student James, and the creation of the Met School Vibe,

an acapella group formed by grade 11 students Rhianna and Allie, we

were able to bring music to the school in a way we hadn’t been able

to previously. Having the Vibe perform at Arts in the Park, our

graduation celebration, the Coffeehouse, and at the Legislative

Building for Manitoba Music Month were definite highlights. We also

heard guitars, ukuleles, violins, rimba tubes, and the harp being

played in the school this year, not to mention, Jai and Satinder’s grade

10 project playing O’ Canada on their traditional Indian instruments

for morning announcements and at grad. We truly hope with this

focus on relationships and fostering community this year, that both

our students and the greater good have benefited from our efforts.

Music

Congratulations to our sixth Seven Oaks Met School

graduating class. This was our largest graduating class

- the first year we had a double advisory graduation.

Among our grads, we have students continuing their

post-secondary education across Canada. Special

congratulations to: Palvi Saini who won the Met School

Justice League – Key to the City Award, Anti-Racism &

Social Justice Bursary, MaryAnn Mihychuk MP Award,

Ken Spenser “Cutting Edge” Canadian Education

Association Scholarship, and the Canad Inns Spirit of

WE Award; Akashdeep Kaur for the Citizenship Award;

Seth Domingo for the Emergent BioSolutions

Scholarship and the Nic Curry MP Young Leaders

Scholarship; Nicholas James for the Graduation Pow

Wow Scholarship; James Toker for the Seven Oaks

Education Foundation Scholarship and the Seven Oaks

Teachers’ Association Scholarship; and finally to

Zander Wuersch for the Seven Oaks Teachers’

Association Scholarship. We couldn’t be more proud.

Congratulations,

Class of 2017!

REPORT TO COMMUNITY

Report to Community A Year of Many Firsts

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