Together We Stand

Our project titled “Together We Stand” is an initiative of the Safe & Caring Team at Holy Cross. It is a school wide approach to ensure that our goal of maintaining a safe and caring environment is met. We are approaching the issue of bullying through school wide behavior expectations, character building in the form of monthly Virtues and encouraging positive attitudes and relationships. As opposed to looking at dealing with bullying after it happens or teaching students “what not to do”, we are educating students on how to act in order to be overall good citizens through the use of Virtues such as courage, respect, responsibility, safety, kindness and compassion.
In this project, we are reaching out to our community partners to create a school wide video on how to be good citizens and the affect that not doing so has on others. This in turn will create empathy in our students who are then less likely to be involved in bullying situations. We are involving various businesses in the community, our Mayor, volunteers and other individuals who invest in our school. Our grade 6 student leadership group called “Crusaders of Kindness” are going to be heavily involved in executing this project that will come together in February when we celebrate our Stand Up day. The Crusaders of Kindness will be responsible for performing a black light production to a compilation of empowering songs encouraging kindness and friendship.
The research around the reality of bullying is clearly an indicator that no student is safe. Therefore, with the success of our Stand Up project last year, a priority of Holy Cross Elementary is our school wide video involving not only our students and staff, but this year we are involving community members who are stakeholders in our students lives and therefore, education. This video will be approximately 6-10 minutes in duration and will consist of statistics of bullying and it’s affects on young people. The black light production will be about 5-7 minutes.

Update (February 27, 2015)

Holy Cross wanted to highlight the amazing support network that we have from community, district and department personnel. Many of these members showed up to celebrate with us, our ceremony strategically titled "Together We Stand". The following is a picture of community members including Keli-Ann Pye-Beshara who wrote a poem for the school that the students acted out in their school wide pro-kindness video; school council member Kim Ghaney; Karen and Lorin Harte who supply the entire school staff and students with a delicious Christmas dinner; Genny Kieley a past parent and organizer of the breakfast program at the school; Steve Martin with parks and recreation; Mayor Gary Goobie; Assistant Director of NLESD, Lucy Warren; Mike Walsh with Safe and Caring School at the Department; SEO John Way; Tom Hedderson Parliamentary secretary to Minister Susan Sullivan; along with Staff and Grade 6 students who put off an energetic black light production that left us all speechless and with an important message of empowerment and encouragement to be ourselves.

Update (February 27, 2015)

Holy Cross had a great support network show up to celebrate "Together We Stand" in a sea of pink.

Update (February 27, 2015)

Newfoundland and Labrador English School District (NLESD) Assistant Director, Lucy Warren addressed the crowd after the black light performance stating it was "the highlight of my year". She went on to discuss the importance of the bystander. She announced that NLESD has launched a pledge and encouraged for all to visit their website www.nlesd.ca and sign the pledge.

Update (February 27, 2015)

Internationally recognized artist Keli-Ann Pye-Beshara fortunately lives in our community and loves helping out whenever she can. Keli-Ann was beyond excited to help out with our school wide video production. She wrote a poem titled "How Does it Feel?" by which the students acted out stanzas in the poem for the school wide video of pro kindness. Guidance Counsellor, Karen Norman was beyond thrilled when Keli-Ann went above and beyond to help out with our safe and caring initiative.

Update (February 27, 2015)

Our Grade 6 student leaders put off an amazing, energetic, stellar black light show to a compilation of songs of empowerment and encouragement. The room was rocking with energy and the reviews are beyond phenomenal! The students are very proud, as are their teachers who helped put it all together: Mrs, Norman, Mrs. Lewis and Ms. Doran.

Update (February 27, 2015)

Not a bad view from the crowd :)

Update (February 27, 2015)

Newfoundland Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development, Honorable Susan Sullivan was unable to attend therefore Tom Hedderson the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister addressed the crowd saying he was "speechless", but certainly not surprised.