Student Leadership at LCS | Students for Students

This week has been an exciting one for our community; we are so grateful to have been able to resume hosting classic LCS winter events, including K-Rod, Winter Carnival, and Friday Night Lights. These events are not only about upholding LCS traditions, they are about bringing our community together, brightening the spirits of our students, staff, and faculty, and creating opportunities for our students to develop their voice and leadership skills.

 

At LCS, our vision is to inspire teenagers to be leaders who care, connect, and contribute. The School Life Class provides students with leadership opportunities that focus on uplifting community spirit by organizing events ­– big and small ­– throughout the year. There are 35 students in the class and together, they organize between 80 and 100 events per school year. Some events are smaller and appeal to specific groups at LCS while others are designed for the entire school community to enjoy.

 

School-wide events, such as K-Rod and Winter Carnival take months to organize and students often begin planning in September/October. When working on these events, students learn to create goals, work together, and formulate detailed plans. This year, they had the added challenge of monitoring COVID-safety protocols to ensure that the events would respect our school and community guidelines. 

 

When asked what their motivation was to organize community events, the students’ responses were universal: they want their community to be as happy as possible. 

 

“Something that motivates me to organize events like this would be the spirit and energy the younger students bring to these kinds of events. It’s amazing to watch them enjoy themselves and participate with one hundred percent.”  - Valentina Boren ’21

 

“What really motivates us is knowing we can brighten up this hard year. Covid has taken such a big toll but seeing us all come together like this makes it so much easier to cope with it.” - Gabi Brown ’24

Mr. O’Grady (Director of Student Leadership) shared the importance of students participating in and contributing to community events, “They learn collaboration skills, responsibility, and follow through. They also learn accountability – the dates of these events can’t change once they’ve been selected – their peers are relying on them to deliver events on time.”

 

Events like K-Rod, Winter Carnival, and Friday Night Lights serve to bolster school spirit and bring our community closer together through engaging activities that provide us with a moment to pause our day-to-day routines and reflect on what we love about being a part of the Lakefield community.

 

We’d like to thank the students in the School Life Class for their enthusiasm, positivity, and kindness in organizing safe events for our community. Our students spent months formulating ideas to brighten spirits while considering the logistical measures of respecting safety guidelines. The events this week were a huge success and added some cheer to the cold winter months.

 

 

Our Katchewanooka Rod (K-Rod) took place on Tuesday, February 23 and it’s The Grove’s fun nod to the Iditarod Dog Sled Racing. The event this year looked different than previous years due to the safety measures employed to keep students and staff safe. Juniors and seniors were separated and sub-divided into paper houses to ensure small groups. The organizers were pleased to discover that this led to greater participation from our students! 

 

We would like to express appreciation for some of the key individuals involved in organizing this event and ensuring our community stayed safe while having fun.

 

We are so grateful for Steph Wilcox ’03 (Student Activities Coordinator) and the paper house captains for their work generating enthusiasm and positivity. A special thanks to Mr. O’Grady for facilitating an amazing, safe, and fun event for our community. 

We’d also like to give a huge shout out to the Grade 9 and 10 students for their spirit and enthusiasm. They were so positive and engaged in the event.

Gratitude is owed to our senior students for promoting the event and conveying the message around why it’s fun and why it’s important to join in.

Finally, we are grateful to our students and staff for respecting all safety measures – staying distanced, wearing masks, and staying with their cohorts – we are very lucky to be able to host these outdoor events at this time. 

Watch the video.

 

 

On Wednesday, February 24, the entire school joined together in small house cohort groups at three different locations to celebrate Winter Carnival – a full day of Winter fun! Students enjoyed paper house relay races, sweet treats from the Funnel Cake truck, snowball fights, snow soccer, great conversations, and sleigh rides through the snow at our Northcote Campus.

This event would not have been possible without Bruce McMahon (Director of Northcote and Special Projects), Garrett Hart (Outdoor Education Assistant), and the Grads at Northcote. They spent weeks planning this event and their hard work is so appreciated.

We’d like to give a shout out to the owners of the horse teams that were able to come to our Northcote Campus and made the sleigh ride activity possible. 

The Student Life Class paper house captains did an excellent job organizing the event and the SIC Heads of House did an incredible job of promoting the event and guiding houses through the rotations throughout the day.

It’s important that we celebrate the LCS staff; they had a tremendous impact on making the day so positive by joining in on snowball fights with the students, engaging in meaningful conversations, taking pictures, participating in the luge run, and more. Our staff are amazing and it was great to see them have a fun day with our students. 

Finally, we’d like to thank Brian McCaw (Facilities Manager), the maintenance staff, and the Aramark staff for all their background and logistical support. They played a big role in ensuring the day ran smoothly.

Watch the video