Last week Estevan celebrated Catholic Education.
Sacred Heart School/École Sacré Coeur and St. Mary’s School went above and beyond to help their students and families to have a joyful and exciting week despite staying apart.
Megan Vanstone, who is a Grade 7 teacher at Sacred Heart/Sacré Coeur, talked about how the week went.
“It was good. It was definitely different. This is a big week for us, where we get together a lot and celebrate. We have a lot of assemblies, we do activities together, we buddy-up between classrooms together. And now all of it was not a possibility anymore. So … all of the teachers worked together to create those, we call them home-learning kits, but it’s just basically a bunch of activities, games and supplies for kids to celebrate Catholic Education Week at home,” said Vanstone.
Throughout the week school staff created and delivered these learning kits. They were all based on different Bible stories that had to do with their theme of celebrating hope. Learning kits included arts, crafts, STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) challenges, stories to read, games and a few little gifts and treats. Most teachers delivered the packages to their own students.
“They drove all over the city and made sure that each kid got one of these bags that they could do these activities and celebrate with us from afar,” said Vanstone.
They were also hosting virtual Gospel assemblies. These are the assemblies they normally celebrate weekly at school, but due to restrictions on gatherings they had to change the format and have been celebrating as a school virtually on Google meet.
“We had over 100 families join us for that as well to gather and pray,” said Vanstone. “It’s pretty cool to see 100 little screens all over your screen as all these kids meet together for this Gospel assembly.”
They’ve done a few meetings in an effort to maintain the connectivity between students and teachers, as being apart was the most difficult challenge throughout the weeks of online learning.
A colourful and beautiful parade became the culmination of the Catholic Education Week. School staff drove around Estevan, passing by their students’ homes and greeting families on May 21 – World Catholic Education Day.
Vanstone said that she teared up a little when she saw all her colleagues at the parking lot with all the vehicles decorated for the parade.
“It was just a great experience ... I was having trouble holding back the tears. It was just wonderful. It was just so good to see our kids. The computer screen really doesn’t do justice, it’s just really hard and we miss them a lot,” said Vanstone.
“And I think they really miss seeing us too, because they were pretty excited to see us too.”
Because of the French Immersion program, Sacred Heart/Sacré Coeur draws from a lot of different areas of Estevan. So the parade went around the entire city to make sure that it was possible for everyone to meet it at one location or another without driving to the other end of Estevan.
Vanstone believes they saw most of their students that day.
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We went to many different places, and we saw kids everywhere we went. Young ones, old ones. Sometimes older kids, they may be a little bit more hesitant to come to something like that, but even they were there. There was never a point where you weren’t waving, or smiling, or throwing candy, or saying hello to someone, because there were just people everywhere.”
St. Mary’s School also had a separate parade on the same day, where they also did a drive-by all of their students’ homes to see them and say hello.
“We did them separate just so that kids could see their teachers … We didn’t want there to be confusion and kids not know who certain teachers were. So we did it separately, but we (were) celebrating the Catholic Education Week together between the two schools,” explained Vanstone.
And while being apart was tough, Vanstone said that as far as she knows about 95 per cent of Sacred Heart/Sacré Coeur students were involved in the online education process throughout the pandemic.
“We have kids that are on every day. They are coming, meeting with us virtually … they are completing assignments. And we know that a lot of this work is falling on parents. They are doing an absolutely fabulous job.”
The last day of school is June 26, and the parade became a midpoint for the e-learning process that will go on up until that day.
