Burdett School celebrates student progress

Commentator/Courier photo by Anna Smith Exhibitions: Picture of one of the student’s passion displays, showcasing the new business she had started.

By Anna Smith

Commentator/Courier

Students, staff, and community gathered on the afternoon of April 20 to take a look behind the classroom doors for their first exhibition of learning.

This celebration is ongoing throughout all of the Prairie Rose division, said Cheryl Rebmann, principal of Burdett School. 

“That is where they are showcasing student’s learning over the years so far. So what they do is they may start from something like, let’s say, a writing sample even. And then they’ll show the progression to where they are now,” said Rebmann. 

The gym was filled with both presentations on hand strength and writing, graph-making, and various passion projects from the junior high students, all to show off their ability to learn and improve.

“The gym, you’ll see various projects where there are fine motor skills in kindergarten, you’ll see a 3D model of Burdett, you’ll see reading, there’s some girls playing music, and there’s some drawing, and there’s baking,” said Rebmann. “So it’s something about their learning and their sharing. So that’s what the school district would like the students to do and the schools to do is to show the kids learning, right? It’s not about the teachers, it’s about the kids.”

The students were a bit hesitant at first, said Rebmann, but the payoff has been more than worth it.

“They introduced us to it in January, when we got back from the break. So then we had four months to work on it. So we practiced our passion, and then we show how we have learned from it,” said Rebecca Froese, a grade nine student.

It was a bit intimidating to present their projects to so many people, and the process has been a “bit of chaos,” said grade eight student Kayden Journoud.

The junior high passion projects varied from Journoud’s basketball free-throws to fellow grade eight student Diedrich Peters’ realism drawing, as well as the younger student’s projects such as the grade three graphs, but what mattered was their ability to look at their work and identify where they improved and what they still wanted to strive to perfect.

“Everybody has really enjoyed it. They love the projects. They love to see what the kids are learning. They’re just amazed at what some of the kids are learning, you know, and what they’re sharing. So yeah, the feedback has been very positive for my community,” said Rebmann.

Various schools have already completed their exhibitions of learning, both themed and non-themed, with many more to come in the near future throughout the division.

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