Students take initiative
Grade 6 leadership group eager to get involved
Stewart Burnett
Northern News Services
Thursday, October 13, 2016
INUVIK
Eager and enthusiastic Grade 6 students at East Three Elementary School have taken the bull by the horns and started up a leadership club to plan events and make a positive impact in the community.
The cleanup crew gather for a photo while taking care of the new playground at East Three School on Oct. 07. From back left, clockwise, are Kunal Sharma, Hamza Mourtada, Joel MacNabb, Brennen Sutton, with Seigna Hult-Griffin in front. - Stewart Burnett/NNSL photo
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"It's fun to help kids," student Joel MacNabb said during an after-school leadership club meeting.
Teachers Abe Drennan and Stephanie Parkes are helping run the club, but they were quick to say it was the students who came up with the idea.
It started with an interest in organizing a school dance, and now nearly half the Grade 6 population at East Three Elementary School is involved in the leadership club, which meets twice a week after school.
"Many of them have said they want to be helpers, they want to offer a helping hand in the school, they want to make a difference in this school, they want to make school more fun," said Drennan.
"It's an opportunity for them to have ownership over how things happen in the school. It's an opportunity for us as the adult coaches to (let them take the lead) and guide them along and give them the parameters to work in, but they have to do what they need to do to get things done."
The students had some leadership training last year in the WITS program ("Walk away, Ignore, Talk it out, Seek help"), an anti-bullying and general good behaviour class for Grade 5 students.
"I think they're super-motivated kids," said Parkes. "They're pleasant, they're helpful, they're kind, they want to be involved. They're leaders."
Beyond the dance, Parkes said the leadership club has adopted a new morning ritual for the school in which students read announcements and a playground cleanup was organized.
"It's just them finding ways to be involved in what's happening in the school and make it fun for the other kids," said Parkes.
"This is teaching them to become active members of the school, take ownership, become leaders, make decisions, think things through and plan. Those are life skills that maybe you don't learn in health class or science class or math."
Drennan said it is about building good citizens. He hopes younger students look up to the Grade 6 leadership club, while the current group prepare for future leadership groups in the high school.
"If the younger kids see the Grade 6s doing it, being involved... those kids are going to start to look up to them and say, 'I want to be in the leadership club when I'm in Grade 6,'" said Drennan. "That's the kind of message we need to start building and I think this group is a really good start."
He hopes to get the leadership club involved in more activities outside of the school and play a larger role in the wider community.
Parkes said she might have expected the group to fizzle out by now.
"The arena's open now, the kids want to skate, they want to swim, so I would have expected it to drop off a bit, but we've had more people come," she said. "Tonight they were sitting here with their hockey gear, so they're headed to the arena but this was important enough that they came here first. I think that says something about their character and their passion for helping out."
