Strathmore, AB / TheNewswire /

Submitted Date: 2017-02-13 

School Year: 2016/17

School Information

School District: Golden Hills

Name of School: Brentwood (95 Brentwood Blvd, T1P 1E3, Strathmore)

Name of your School Principal:Christina Hoover

Principal's Phone number: 403-934-5013

Principal's Email Address: christina.hoover@ghsd75.ca

Teacher Contact Information

Name: Johanna Fell

Phone number: 403-934-5013

Email Address:johanna.fell@ghsd75.ca

Required Information

Title of Project: Brentwood Star News (Student Newspaper Project)

Project Focus: Community/Relationships

Geographic Scope of the Project: Local

Project Description (short summary of citizenship initiative): 
As part of our district-wide movement to help students think in creative, critical and collaborative ways, the grade six teachers worked together to design a student newspaper project. Our goals are to encourage students to develop skills relevant to successful communication and to foster connections between the community and our school. The content of the newspaper is aimed at engaging the wider community with events at Brentwood. As entrepreneurs, our students have taken responsibility for all aspects of the newspaper, including: layout, design, writing, editing and advertising. The students have approached several business’ in our community who pay to advertise in Brentwood Star News. The cost of producing the paper is offset by these advertising revenues, mirroring the relationship between media and business in a very real way for our students. In addition, our school mission is “a family-centered school built on a foundation of excellence creating boundless learning opportunities” and this statement is at the forefront of our project. 

Please explain how student leadership, collaboration and experiential learning have been included: Students have the opportunity to participate in experiential learning by rotating through the various newspaper roles (reporter, editor, classifier, photographer, advertiser, and designer). Students work collaboratively with their classmates while in these roles, at the events they report on, and through the sharing of their experiences/knowledge. Each role has a leadership component embedded in it as they are all responsible for a specific aspect of the newspaper. Students are also engaged in leadership, collaboration, and experiential learning when communicating with community partners for advertisements and when they are reporting on school/community events. 

Grade Levels: There are 70 students in Grade 6 directly involved in the newspaper project, however, the entire school (370 students) from Kindergarten to Grade 6 are affected by the project.

Community Partners: 
Community partners include: École Brentwood Elementary School teachers, staff, administrators, and parents; Central Division Office of Golden Hills School Division No. 75; and local businesses.

Project Start Date: 2016-11-02

Project Completion Date: 2018-06-29

Anticipated community impact:
We anticipate the fostering of a deeper sense of community within our school and to build stronger connections between École Brentwood Elementary School and the town of Strathmore, Alberta.

Evidence of Success:
We will know that we have been successful if we continue to receive community advertisements and support; the students produce higher quality work/show growth in all aspects of the project (photography, editing, advertising, classifying, designing) and show improved PAT results. As well, we will see evidence of success if students embrace our school mission statement; if there is an increase school pride; and an increase in personal pride of their work. After receiving the grant, the project will be sustained through advertisements.

How will you showcase the results of this initiative?
We will be showcasing student work by displaying and/or passing out copies in the following places: local businesses, our school bulletin board, and central division office. We have also sent electronic copies to all of our parents and provided paper copies to students. Our plan is to continue to showcase their work by sharing it on our school facebook page and website. We also have a local business that plans to link their business page to our website!

Funding Purpose: 
We would like to use this grant to buy supplies needed to enhance this project such as a camera and money for students to visit local newspaper experts to further improve the quality of our product. 

Funding Amount Requested: We are requesting $1000.

Letter of Support from Principal with signature: No

Optional - Letter of Support from Community Member with signature e.g. Politician: No

Additional Comments/Information: 
The Educational Partnership Foundation would be recognized through our school newsletter, website, and facebook page. In addition, our students would report on the impact of the TEPF grant on our project. We would also invite the Golden Hills School Division office to publish a letter of recognition on their website and we would invite our local newspaper to report on the TEPF and its support of our school/community. There are endless curriculum connections (Social Studies, Language Arts, Art, etc.) and possibilities when it comes to this project! We are very excited to see where we end up in June, and look forward to seeing how we can continue this project with future sixth grade classes.