St. Mildred's-Lightbourn School - Junior School

Junior School

"The Junior School program, which spans pre-school to Grade 5, is designed to suit the individual learning styles and developmental stages of girls during these critical years. The Junior School students are on an educational journey of self-discovery that inspires their intellectual curiosity, promotes their personal growth, guides their social development and supports their emotional well-being. Led by dedicated, caring, and knowledgeable teachers and staff who focus on creating exciting, innovative and girl-centric programming, the Junior School develops in our students a life-long love of learning." --Head of Junior School, Irene McRae

Academics: Junior school students are taught literacy, mathematics, science, social science, French, and religion

Arts: The Junior School arts program consists of music classes, visual arts classes, and several performance opportunities for students to showcase their musical, dramatic, and artistic talents.

Athletics: At St. Mildred's, all Junior School students participate in a physical education class. There are also several extra-curricular teams for students to join, such as hockey, soccer, swimming, frisbee, basketball, cross-country, and track and field.

Community Service: The Junior School is involved in a variety of school-wide community events including:

United Way Week (October) - Throughout this week of fundraising a variety of events culminates in a lip sync contest at the end of the week. Money raised is donated to United Way of Oakville.

UNICEF (October) - On October 31 Junior School students earn the privilege of wearing orange and black 'grub' clothes by donating money to UNICEF.

KidsFest Canada (May) - Students collect new school supplies for the KidsFest Canada organization. KidsFest provides backpacks full of school supplies to kids in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), who can't afford to buy their own.

FIRST LEGO League: St. Mildred's Lightbourn School offers FIRST LEGO League (FLL), the "little league" of robotics - in Grade 6. With the help of LEGO robotics technology, they work as a team to build a robot and compete in a friendly, FIRST robotics event.

Global Studies Program: The Duke of Edinburgh's Award Program The Duke of Edinburgh's Award Program is an essential feature of Global Studies that encourages perseverance, self-reliance, and community service. SMLS students must complete the requirements for the Bronze level, and are encouraged to continue on to the Silver and Gold levels. This award program encourages and motivates youth in a variety of personal development activities - including community service, physical recreation, skill and adventurous journey - all designed to advance the physical, mental and spiritual aspects of the whole person. Visit www.dukeofed.org for more information.

Round Square Program: St. Mildred's Lightbourn School's regional membership in the international Round Square Program has also been integrated into Global Studies. As a Round Square school, SMLS teaches and develops the IDEALS (internationalism, democracy, environmental awareness and action, adventure, leadership, service), through activities, workshops, speakers and curriculum integration. Young Round Square Program (Grade 6-S2) is not offered to students in the Junior School. Visit www.roundsquare.org for more information.

Laptop Program: As of September 2009, St. Mildred's Lightbourn School has expanded their laptop program to include Grade 6. This change has been made in hopes of preparing the Grade 6 students for further use of the laptops throughout their senior school years. This addition has begun to teach students that technology can be a great help in their learning. Laptops allow students to find their own way to learn. Whether it be visually or auditory, the laptop program helps students find what works best for them. As with the rest of the students using laptops, distractions such as Facebook, Myspace, MSN, and gaming websites have been blocked. However should students try to by pass these barriers, there are consequences. St. Mildred's Lightbourn School has decided that introducing the laptop program to a younger age group will benefit them in the future, not just in their future years at SMLS, but also when they graduate to university.