MONTREAL – The Lester B. Pearson School Board ’s first-ever Junior Leadership Day saw grades 5 and 6 students from 20 schools across the board taking part in workshops that taught them skills that will last a lifetime.
“Students had a full day of workshop sessions ranging from digital citizenship to how to get involved in high school life,” said Nathia Messina, principal at St. Edmund Elementary in Beaconsfield where the Feb. 8 event took place.
Students from five LBPSB high schools were on hand to help make the day a success.
Students from Pierrefonds Comprehensive high school ran four different break-out sessions, created a video of the event and also helped behind the scenes to organize the day.
As well, leadership students from John Rennie, Riverdale, Beaconsfield and Macdonald High Schools animated their own break-out sessions.
Messina said the idea for holding a leadership day at the elementary school level came from fellow principal Michael Rabinovitch of Beechwood Elementary in Pierrefonds.
“Michael’s vision was to start introducing positive leadership at the elementary level and focus on developing skills such as communication, teamwork and leadership and how these skills are impacted by the technologies our students now use in their daily interactions,” said Messina.
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“We thought it was a great idea and decided to go ahead with a pilot project this year,” she said, adding that the next Junior Leadership Day will be held at Beechwood next year.
Rabinovitch said the event is a team affair that was inspired by the Canadian Student Leadership Conference which is geared to senior high school students.
“We thought that many of these kinds of workshop skills could be adapted towards elementary-age students,” he said adding that organizers at first thought that this year’s project would be on a small scale, involving maybe four or five schools, but the response was overwhelming, with 20 schools wanting to take part.
“The goal is to bring all of our elementary leaders together and to give them the chance to meet and share their leadership experiences,” said Rabinovitch. “We hope the leadership skills they learn here will continue on to high school and ground them as they grow into our positive leaders of tomorrow.”
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