The French Immersion students visited the New Sudbury branch of the Sudbury Public Library for a French tour of the library recently.
The students, along with their teacher Sabrina Rocca took the Sudbury Transit and spent the morning reading French books and having French conversations with the Sudbury Public Library staff.
It’s just one of the ways French Immersion students can keep the learning authentic while outside the classroom.
In 2015 eight universities in Ontario collaborated with the Ontario Catholic School Trustee Association (OCSTA) to create the OCSTA Certificate Course in Leadership & Good Governance. This is a 12-week online course that is provincial in scope but also includes local Catholic issues specific to a trustee’s own regional district. The course provides a trustee with many benefits such as developing a greater understanding and appreciation of the history of Catholic education in Ontario along with a greater understanding of the role of Catholic social teaching in our modern society. The leadership lessons of Pope Francis are also explored in the course. Topics include youth engagement in Catholic education, the role of the trustee as a public advocate for Catholic education, our support for Ontario First Nations, Metis and Inuit education and an examination of trends in Catholic education throughout Canada and the rest of the world.
Sudbury Catholic Trustee, Nancy Deni took part in this program. As part of the program, trustees are required to work on a practicum project that ideally could benefit their school board. Deni chose to focus on the home-school-parish triad relationship and ways that this triad can be strengthened. As part of her project, she sought and received feedback from parents, principals, priests and laypersons in the Church as she feels very strongly that the strength of this relationship is the key to keeping Catholic education alive and well in Ontario.
“I feel very privileged to be amongst the first cohort of trustees to complete the program,” Deni stated. “It was an eye-opening experience and I recommend the course to all trustees who want to be strong advocates for Catholic education in this province. This course really strengthened my belief that a Catholic education provides students with a really special and unique educational experience. We really do educate the mind, the body and the spirit in our schools.”
The FI students integrated multiple subjects in the foods class at St. Charles College recently. They used French procedural writing to write and explain recipes as well as the particle theory for Science.
The grade seven students recorded baking recipes on the Ipads. They had to explain their work as they added and mixed ingredients. They were responsible for preheating the oven, preparing the recipe, timing the cooking, doing the dishes and cleaning up. They also had to explain the particle theory through the baking process.
The grade eight students then took the cakes, and had twenty minutes to create a cell. They were recorded and had to explain the parts of the cell they created.
Their teacher, Sabrina Rocca says it was a fun-filled afternoon with all kinds of learning – through written, kinaesthetic and oral language.
February 3rd marks the feast day for Saint Blaise of Sebaste. Blaise was a physician before becoming a Bishop and is believed to have cured a young boy from death as he had a fish bone stuck in his throat. This miracle martyred him and the ritual of throat blessings began.
Every year the students and staff at S.C.C. have the option to have their throats blessed to keep them safe from injury or disease. This year, the throat blessing fell on an ice day so staff was blessed. This was a first for our elementary 7/8 teachers who are new to the S.C.C. family.
St. Charles College teacher Mike Fabiilli has one more reason to celebrate this year. In addition to winning a Senior Boys’ City Football Championship this past fall, he is also going to be inducted into the University of Ottawa Football Hall of Fame April 30th in Ottawa.
Fabiilli was a student at St. Charles College from 1977-1982. He played five years of football for the school winning three City Championships.
In 1982 he went to the University of Ottawa to play for the Gee Gees. As a freshman linebacker he won the Peter Gorman Trophy for outstanding CIS freshman football player in Canada. He was a conference all-star linebacker for two seasons.
After graduation, Fabiilli returned to Sudbury to start his teaching career at St. Charles College. He has been a math teacher and football coach at SCC for the past twenty-nine years. He has helped guide the Cards to ten City Championships in football.
Fabiilli has also served as a Defensive Co-ordinator for the Sudbury Spartans for eight seasons and the Sudbury Gladiators for five. He also co-founded the Joe MacDonald Youth Football League in Sudbury.
Mike continues to coach with passion and conviction and imparts in his players a love for the game and all of life’s lessons that can be gained from playing it.
Students at St. Charles College celebrated St. Anthony of Egypt this week at their monthly Saint service celebration.
Deacon Steve Callaghan says it is a fitting Saint for students at SCC to celebrate him because he believed in serving the Lord to be one as a Christian community and this is the week of Christian unity. It is also timely because SCC does serve and give back through their Christmas campaign, Chalice collection and the canned food drive just to name a few of the initiatives.
Teacher Carlo Pastre who helps organize the saint days says “Saint Anthony lead a solemn lifestyle by himself and prayed about praising God.
His call was to serve the Lord by retreating.”
The monthly Saint celebrations at SCC offer students a service complete with communion, as well as treats for the students afterwards.
The St. Charles College Dance Class paired up with local dance company, Spotlight Dance Company to work on toning and conditioning with the dancers this semester. The students had monthly excursions to Spotlight Dance Companyto work on different genres of dance studied in class, teaming up with their talented instructors. S.C.C Dance teacher, Patricia Demore says “the dancers developed leadership, dedication and time management skills through their monthly visits. The dancers had another successful semester and are looking forward to the new year. The dance focus class is offered yearly at St. Charles College. Students can take the class to earn their mandatory physical education credit.
The tradition to help families in need at Christmas is still alive after more than twenty years at St. Charles College.
This year almost twenty-five families will have gifts to put under the tree for their children thanks to the Cards.
Homerooms pool money together in the weeks leading up to Christmas and then go shopping with the child’s pre-made list in hand.
Deacon Steve Callaghan, the school Chaplain spearheads the initiative yearly, “Each homeroom essentially adopts a child or children within a family attending one of its feeder schools and supplies gifts for the children.” To keep annonymity and respect the families privacy, Deacon Steve delivers the parcels to the parents in the days leading up to Christmas through the help of the feeder school Principals.
Principal Patty Mardero says “The initiative falls in line with the Ontario Catholic Graduate Expectation five which focuses on students becoming collaborative contributors inside of the walls of the school but also helping students beyond that in the greater community.”
The grade nine French Immersion students at St. Charles College are currently studying a unit on “Les Contes” (short stories). One of their assignments was to create a “conte” and develop vocabulary words and comprehension questions about their “contes”.
The students collaborated with teacher Colette Perrin’s Grade 1 Immersion students to read the “contes”, and assist them with their French reading and understanding.
The small students also happened to be celebrating pajama day and were divided into stations for story time with the big SCC students who were celebrating ugly Christmas sweater day.
Christmas will be just a little brighter this year for some patients in the Sudbury area suffering from cancer. Grade 8 students at St. Charles College Elementary, created handmade Christmas cards that will be distributed to patients suffering from cancer, in honour of one of their own classmates who is courageously battling the disease.
Mrs. Kathy Belanger, the teacher in charge of the activity said: “One of my students, came to me with a letter from her grand mother’s friend, asking if we would be willing to create Christmas cards as a way to make some people’s holiday season a little brighter. Our class thought it would be a wonderful gesture to demonstrate how we are ‘Church in the World’.”
During two religion classes, students in the 8A homeroom put their artistic talents to work while listening to Christmas music, which created an atmosphere of happiness, joy and hope for those struggling with the disease.
The cards will be distributed before the holidays begin.
