By Karen Johnson
On June 4, 100 Mile House Junior Secondary students met the grades 10-11 students at Peter Skene Ogden Secondary School (PSO) for an event called Fuse-it-Up.
It was a follow-up to our hugely successful and popular YES (Youth Excellence Society) “Change it Up'” program that set the stage for a great school year last fall.
PSO was chosen as the pilot school in the province for this new program. Change it Up was designed to build more caring, respectful and fun culture in our schools – the kind of social environment that students wake up excited to come to school for.
For about 40 years, YES has run a Youth Summer Camp program, sponsored by the credit unions and co-ops of British Columbia. Many 100 Mile youth aged 14-18 have been sponsored by the Williams Lake and District Credit Union throughout the years and it has had a very positive effect on our school and our community. (See www.theyes.ca.)
Six YES camp staff came to PSO to facilitate Fuse-it-Up – a celebration event aimed at reinforcing the positive change created by Change it Up and to keep the “vibe” alive.
It was also a celebration of the coming together of our two schools: a chance to share how everyone was feeling about the upcoming change; to talk about concerns about the change; to discuss what their fears were; what their hopes were; to think about what their roles should be; to be empathetic for those coming into a new environment; and to discuss how to build the accepting, respectful, fun culture that students of all ages say they want.
Through games, activities and discussions, students had opportunity to get to know more about each other. Younger students were teamed up with grades 10-11 leaders who went through a training session with the YES staff the day before the event.
These leaders will be there to help new students have a positive start to their school year at “Nouveau PSO.” The student leaders will be easily recognized by the new grades 8, 9 and 10s, as they will be decked out in their bright tie-dyed T-shirts when new students walk through the doors in September.
Not to leave the Grade 7s out, the grades 10-11 students wrote personal letters to all of the Grade 7s in the south-end elementary schools, welcoming and assuring them not to believe all of the crazy urban legends about terrors in the hallways of secondary schools.
While students were mingling in the courtyard, another group of grade 10-11s were in the gym, planning and organizing a surprise “celebration ceremony” for the coming together of the two schools. In the middle of a circle of lights was a big “Intention Tree.”
Students sat in a circle around the gym, and in turn, a spokesperson from each group brought forward and placed on the tree, their group's handmade, thumbprint stamped canvas poster. These posters had the one word their group chose to express how they felt about the amalgamation of the two schools. They read this word aloud as they walked forward.
The ceremony closed with a remixed electronic version of the Beatles song “Come Together” and then the entire group went out to the courtyard to plant a beautiful flowering plum tree – the Unity Tree. Grade 8 student Wyatt Coulson and Grade 11 student Ryan Bock had the honours of planting the tree.
100 Mile House Junior Secondary vice-principal Ty Lytton says about 200 of the school's 250 students turned up for the Fuse-It-Up event at Peter Skene Ogden Secondary School.
"The kids who were there were engaged and getting to know each other. I think they enjoyed it.
"Anytime you can get kids together ahead of time when they are coming to a new school, such as the situation we have here, it's good."
It helped the youth start thinking about the relationships they will be forming next year, and familiarized them with the school, he adds.
"Our kids, here at the Junior are making a transition up, but for the kids at PSO, their whole school is changing. They are going to have a lot more students than what they've been accustomed to."
More transition
Grade 7 students from all the elementary schools came to PSO for a celebration orientation on June 26 from with Junior and Senior leadership students hosting the welcoming event.
The message we would like to convey to parents, teachers and students alike is change always comes bearing gifts and we feel that together we will make “PSO Nouveau” one of the best high schools in the province.
Good communities naturally produce good schools.