Lots of changes have happened at Sir Winston Churchill PS this year, with the most exciting being the ability to mix cohorts in the SKC clubhouse again. This means larger and more diverse groups, just like before the pandemic. We also welcomed back special guests and are planning trips once again. Our students are very excited to have a sense of “normalcy” and to have their SKC Clubhouse back again!

To celebrate Shania’s song “Waking up Dreaming”, we gathered some fun dress up items and shot our very own SKC Brampton music video. We wore wigs, costume jewellery, mustaches, you name it! We had an absolute BLAST and now our dress up bin is a permanent part of our SKC clubhouse.  

This year we welcomed The Travelling Stage to the clubhouse for the first time. They taught our SKC kids’ drama and dance, while tying in life skills, social skills, confidence building, relationship skills and more! Our instructor Shivani helps us develop our character through drama and dance.

A new program is the SKC Mentorship program, where some of our older students mentor the younger kids in the Clubhouse. This mentorship involves helping with schoolwork, reading together, teaching arts and crafts and more. It has been a great confidence builder for our older students and great help for our younger students.

The kids visited the Rose Theatre to see a live performance of “Cinderella”. It was a fabulous performance! Our students rated it a 10/10. They loved the fact that the actors and actresses represented a diverse set of backgrounds. This representation matters very much to our students.

SKC got a nice Christmas makeover and our students LOVED putting up our tree and decorations. It is very important to our students to decorate the clubhouse. Some do not celebrate Christmas or cannot afford to have their home decorated, so for many, this is their only place to experience the seasonal festivities. Towards the end of the school year, we welcomed Sandy (SKC’s Managing Director) and Courtney (SKC Program Leader from Dwight) as well as some SKC students from Dwight. We had tons of fun getting to know each other/seeing each other again since we were apart for so long due to Covid. We had pizza and did some fun activities.

We had a wonderful visit from Cole from Zoo to You! Our students LOVED getting to meet, pet and interact with so many exotic animals. Most of our students have not had the chance to see exotic animals in person, so this was an excellent opportunity. We also welcomed Kim and Natasha from Old Firehall Confectionery to the Clubhouse. Natasha spoke to our students about Black History Month and being a successful black entrepreneur. Our students felt uplifted and inspired. And we enjoyed a visit from Crock-A-Doodle Brampton who showed us how to make our own hand painted and fire glazed tiles. Our students enjoyed using the special paint and learning about the techniques.

The Clubhouse kids paid a visit to PAMA – The Peel Art Gallery Museum and Archives. The kids took a water colour painting class and learned different techniques.  We also had a tour of the Art Gallery and got to see so many beautiful paintings. We wrapped up the tour by visiting the Old Peel Jail.

The end of the year was spent having lots of fun in the sun. We helped to clean our community by getting rid of garbage on our field and school property. At the end of the month, we had our year end field trip to GlowZone Brampton! We did some laser tag, arcade games and enjoyed lots of pizza.

Our SKC Clubhouse is a place where kids can go for academic support, social and emotional development, and assistance with any of the basic necessities that may not be available to them at home. We strive to make the SKC Clubhouse a fun and supportive learning environment where kids who need help and support want to go. We thank our community partners and everyone who donates to help ensure that this program is sustainable for the long term so that we can continue to help kids thrive and grow.