Primary Students from St. Paul Catholic School enjoyed a day of play thanks to International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme students at Bishop Macdonell Catholic High School.
The students began planning the day after a teacher at St. Paul Catholic School reached out to see if any IB students were interested in organizing and facilitating a Primary Play Day for their students. A regular occurrence before COVID protocols were put in place, the students at St. Paul were thrilled to have the event return.
“We were lucky to be asked to volunteer for the primary play day at St. Paul. We were tasked with executing the teacher's idea of giving the kids a fun outdoor afternoon,” said Mackenzie Shannon, co-organizer of the day.
Organized by grade 11 IB students Shannon and Beth Jamieson, they planned several games stations for the primary students to enjoy and helped to recruit the remainder of their class to run each station. Primary students rotated between stations for the afternoon and then ended the day by enjoying freezies together.
“Together, Beth and I created a schedule of events ensuring that the students would be properly supervised and have fun. Some of the events included, tug of war, relay races and potato sack races,” said Shannon.
The leadership was part the IB student’s Creativity Activity Service (CAS) component which encourages students to engage in and reflect on creativity, activity and service experiences.
“We really wanted to be part of this event because it provided us an opportunity to use some of the skills, we have learned in our IB program. We were able to use skills such as leadership, organization and time management to give the primary students a great afternoon,” shared Jamieson. “Most importantly we got to go back to our elementary school and have fun with the students. This project allowed the IB students at BM to use our creativity to create an active, fun filled, afternoon and provide a service to our community at the same time.”
Shannon and Jamieson were very excited to get involved having attended St. Paul themselves and having siblings who currently attend the school.
“Opportunities like the one offered at St. Paul, is one of the reasons why we joined the IB program at BM,” said Shannon. “IB is able to provide an international perspective on learning and education while continuing to place importance on your local community.”
To learn more about the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme students at Bishop Macdonell Catholic High School please visit their website.