Our teachers, early childhood educators and educational assistants at Summerside are second to none! Our educational team is committed to encouraging our students to reach for high expectations. They strive to accommodate different learning styles and preferences. They care deeply about children and work hard to get to know their students, a fundamental part of encouraging success, hope and creativity in each child.
Nos étudiants sont fiers d’étudier et de développer leurs intérêts dans les deux langues officielles. La plupart de la faculté parle français aussi.
Our Kindergarten program is taught by exceptional teachers and early childhood educators who work hard to develop great relationships with children; something we know is essential to helping children develop a positive and healthy start at school. Using play-based learning to support the Four Frames, our Kindergarten students work together in amazing ways to construct their academic, social, emotional and physical development for a great start to their school careers.
Through every grade at Summerside, staff focus on developing positive relationships with students. We are using David Trantor’s The Third Path: A Relationship-based Approach to Student Well-Being and Achievement to frame our teaching and learning with every child at Summerside.
Our primary and junior teachers are also committed to developing the whole child and are skilled in current pedagogical practices. They work closely with our board experts, parents and support staff to provide students opportunities to learn in English and French, and to participate in many extracurricular opportunities. Several of our teachers are keen athletes and enjoy teaching students techniques, teamwork and good sportsmanship.
Our intermediate teachers continue to guide students with their learning in both languages. They work hard to share their passions and talents in literacy and literature, mathematics, music, sports, the arts, technology, the environment, social justice, cooking and history - students explore these pursuits during class and also outside of class time with many opportunities for extracurricular activities. Most importantly, our intermediate team advocates for inclusion and equity for all our students.
Our special education team works closely with our specialized classes so students are sufficiently challenged to learn and not overwhelmed. Our students with special needs are provided with more time and support in areas they find challenging. Teachers, ECEs and Educational Assistants work closely with each individual student, helping them to develop their strengths and interests.
We are continually working alongside our community to implement culturally responsive and reflective pedagogy at Summerside. We want to ensure that students see themselves and their lived experiences within the curriculum and feel safe and confident to share their backgrounds with each other. Our partnership with parents, guardians and community agencies is important. We know it takes a village to raise a child and we prioritize hearing the voices of everyone, especially the voices from equity seeking groups to make sure we are doing the best work we can for our students.
Just as the voice of parents is important to us at Summerside, so is the voice of our students. At school, we work hard to develop our student’s critical thinking skills. We invite them to explore and evaluate differing perspectives while keeping an open mind to seek and share evidence that backs up their opinions and theories. We encourage students to listen to the voices that may sometimes be muted in our society, and we empower them to take action that they believe is important. We work hard with students so they know how to share their own voice in respectful yet assertive ways. We encourage our students’ ideas in our curriculum by listening closely and responding enthusiastically to their thoughts and contributions. Students are highly engaged in their learning at Summerside because they are given the responsibility to share ideas and shape their learning collaboratively with each other and our staff. Together we strive to build a stronger community.
At Summerside we develop life skills and student self-regulation. We assist students in understanding and improving their mental health through available support systems within the district and community. We are diligent about intervening early to remediate learning gaps so students don't fall behind by leveraging our psychology, social work and speech/language pathologist team to assist us to help meet students’ needs.
Our school recognizes that dealing with conflict is a natural part of learning and growing up. Our progressive disciplinary measures center around creating physically and emotionally safe spaces for all our students. We emphasize character education, social skills training and restorative practices. Restorative meetings run by trained staff enable students to develop empathy, responsibility and respect for one another and the environment around them. We work together to reintegrate all parties back into the community as valuable, contributing members by assisting each student to recognize and repair hurt and harm and rebuild trust. Our goal is to keep students safe at school and equip them with the tools they need to stay healthy and happy in their relationships with their peers, the staff at school and with others in the community.
We view students with an asset-based lens; we look for their interests and sparks, and strive to help them be their best and follow their dreams!