The Abbotsford School District is set to embark on a 12-year voyage online with a select group of students.
The district released a teaser video earlier this month announcing the launch of the Journey to 2036 project, which will follow a group of students beginning in Grade 1 and continuing all the way until graduation in 2036.
Superintendent of Schools Sean Nosek will sit down with the students and ask them questions monthly about their hopes, dreams and what they are enjoying about being in school. Nosek said this project is a way for students to have more of a voice.
"We were doing some brainstorming about how we might continue to engage our broader community and thought wouldn't it be fun to just go and engage our younger learners 鈥� ask them some interesting questions and just have fun with it," he said. "We thought it went really well and we're happy to share it."
The series will feature a cohort of Grade 1 students from Clearbrook Elementary and continue talking with them as they age. Nosek said he realizes that some students may move away and they might add other students, but that he wants to continue following them and see how the group grows in the Abbotsford system.
"Our hope is, over time, to have this really compelling body of work that captures the growth of students and in some way to hear how their hopes and dreams shift over time," he said.
Parents are all on-board with the project and Nosek said they realized the potential of what could be created. He said he's not aware of any similar project launched by a school that will follow students for this amount of time. The purpose of the project is to show some of the joy of learning and to showcase how students develop in Abbotsford.
"Our school board expressed a desire for us to engage in more meaningful ways with the broader community and we thought this is a neat way to show some of the magic that happens with the work we do," Nosek added. "School stories can sometimes be technical or purely academic and this is a way to capture some of the spirit and joy of learning, as well as the hopes and dreams of some of our youngest students."
The videos will be posted on the ASD's YouTube channel and are expected to be shared monthly.
