Burnaby's Byrne Creek Secondary is the first Canadian school to receive a special award for going beyond the classroom and nurturing the "whole child."
"Vision In Action: The ASCD Whole Child Award" is to recognize schools that look beyond academics and focus on helping children become emotionally and physically healthy, civically active, economically self-sufficient and generally ready for the world beyond school.
Byrne Creek was chosen because of its demographics and the "safe caring and comprehensive learning environment," according to a press release.
Byrne Creek has a high number of refugee students, and more than 60 per cent of the school population speaks something other than English as a first language. Byrne Creek also teams up with a lot of community groups that help families and students with things like food, parenting skills, early childhood literacy and tutoring, for example.
"The success we have experienced at Byrne Creek is the result of passionate staff, thoughtful planning and integrated programming coming together to support students in a vibrant and diverse community," said principal David Rawnsley.
The ASCD award ceremony is in late March in Philadelphia. ASCD, which used to stand for the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, is a non-profit membership-based group of principals, teachers, professors, superintendents and school board members from more than 145 countries. The group's focus is to encourage best practices in education. For more, go to www.ascd.org.
