GMAA’s Halo Road Race

The rain and the cold couldn’t bring down the amazing spirit of Priory Pride during the Halo Road Race on May 4^th. Having trained over the previous three weeks the students in grades 3 through 6 gathered on the mountain by Beaver Lake to compete in 1km and 2km races against schools from around Montreal. All students that participated completed the race and most achieved new personal bests. Congratulations go out to the following medal winners:

Chloe Dluhosh (Grade 6) – 1st Place
Carson Price-Gallagher (Grade 4) – 2nd Place
Sophie Manning (Grade 3) – 2nd Place
Grace Manning (Grade 5) – 3rd Place

Congratulations to all the participants!

Commonwealth Essay Competition 2011

The Commonwealth Essay Competition is an international writing competition open to all Commonwealth citizens. Currently in its 128th year, the competition is highly regarded and annually receives thousands of entries from schools across the world. Encouraging writing, creativity and reflection, the competition challenges young people to think about important local and global issues. This year, The Priory once again had a winner. Congratulations to Grade 6 student, Gurleen Padda who received "Commendation"  for her entry. Well done Gurleen!
 

The Priory School 16^th Annual QAIS Chess Tournament

The Priory School held its 16^th annual QAIS chess tournament on Saturday April 2^nd. With over 80 students registered for the tournament, the competition was fierce but fun. Although everyone went home with a participation ribbon, only a few would win a medal and qualify for the Provincial Championships. The challenge was tough and serious as peers were positioned against each other, siblings went head to head and newly acquainted children opposed one another. Yet when all was said and done, the players smiled, shook hands to congratulate one another, and then went on to chat amicably before the next round of matches would take place. Everybody involved should be very proud of their efforts and positive attitudes. Special recognition goes out to our Priory winners: Roxana Barin, Kayvan Barin, Laurel Xiang and our gold medal winner Lorenzo Furfaro! We wish you all the best of luck at the Provincials next weekend! A huge thank you to Mrs. Kearney and Ms. Sicoli for organizing the event, and to the Priory parents and staff for lending a helping hand.
 

Students Wow Judges with Heritage Fair Projects

The Priory School’s annual Heritage Fair was held on Wednesday, February 23^rd to showcase class projects collaboratively created by Kindergarten to grade 3 students and individual projects  prepared by grade 4 to 6 students.  Students demonstrated their knowledge and enthusiasm in a wide range of historical themes. Projects on the Ancient Greek Olympics, Captain Roy and the Red Baron, the Vikings, and the Underground Railroad were but a few of the many projects prepared and presented by our students. At the end of the day, a special award ceremony was held for students, judges and parents, and gold medals were presented to the following sixteen students for their outstanding work:

The Sealing of The Neuro's Time Capsule

What would you put in a time capsule that will be opened in 2085? On Friday, May 6^th, The Priory’s Grade 5 and 6 students witnessed the sealing of the Montreal Neurological Institute’s time capsule. Last year, both classes participated in a contest to submit their ideas of what to put into the new time capsule. Winning ideas came from Priory students William Roper and Caterina Alfieri. Both students had the opportunity to be a part of Montreal’s scientific and historic legacy and were asked to place selected items into the capsule. The capsule was placed in the cornerstone of the Neurological Institute and will be reopened on the Neuro’s 150^th anniversary in 2085! WATCH MORE IN THE NEWS: THE SEALING OF THE NEURO'S TIME CAPSULE
 

Young Minds…. Big Ideas, All Making A Difference
The Priory School S.W.A.T. Team “Garners Gold”

What do technology and community service have in common? At The Priory School, plenty! Under ICT teacher Anita DiStefano’s guidance, a group of nine talented and innovative grade six students decided to work together to advance technology at their school and to use their creative talents to help others. With this in mind, the S.W.A.T. Team (Students Working to Advance Technology) decided to produce a Priory School Christmas Concert DVD that would be sold to family and friends. The resulting $1447.00 raised was donated to a very grateful St. Gabriel’s Food Bank to help needy families in the area. The S.W.A.T. Team then decided to enter the 12^th Annual Quebec Entrepreneurship Contest and collaboratively put together a beautiful Memory Book and insightful wiki (web site) http://prioryswat.wikispaces.com/ of their community service endeavors to share with others. The many long hours and hard work preparing this project reaped enormous rewards as The Priory S.W.A.T. Team won first prize in the Quebec Entrepreneurship Contest, Montreal Region for Elementary Cycle 3 and received a cheque for $500 which will be donated to the United Nations Organization. The team project has been selected to go on to the Quebec National Competition. This year, almost 70 000 students were involved in developing 2 729 entrepreneurial projects from all over Québec during the 2009-2010 school year. Young minds…big ideas, all making a difference!  READ MORE IN THE NEWS: PRIORY KIDS PUT TECH SKILLS TO GOOD USE

Our Published Authors

From thousands of entries from almost five hundred schools across Canada, three students from The Priory grade five class were chosen to have their poems and short stories published in an upcoming Polar Expressions Anthology. Congratulations to Damian Fitz, Ryota Yanagisawa, and Alexander Milovan for a job well done!

The Poetry Institute of Canada holds a highly competitive annual poetry and short story contest to encourage young authors and poets. One of this year's winners is Priory student Gurleen Padda, whose short story entitled “A Cold Winter Day” was published in an anthology celebrating young poets. Congratulations Gurleen!
 

The Priory’s Robotics Team Brings Home the Trophy

The Priory School’s Robotics Team competed for the first time, in the annual Robotics Competition, held on April 24th and 25th, 2009 in Laval and won the trophy for "Best school"!  In addition, the  Shot Put Team of Cedrik Moore (team captain), Aidan Reckziegel, William Roper and Harrison Yue along with Amritpal Padda, Devin Soosai Heronimus and Alexander Torabi took top honours and won the Event Winner category of having the overall best score! 

This challenging competition requires students to create, build and program fully functional robots giving students an opportunity to apply their problem solving skills. Thirteen students, working together as a team, some concentrating on the design, others on the creation and building while others concentrated on programming and debugging, competed in a series of events grouped together under an Olympics theme, where students had to undergo five separate and challenging events. Congratulations to our Robotics Team, you have made us very proud! READ MORE: THE PRIORY ROBOTICS COMPETITION IN THE NEWS


Math Competition

The Priory School received Honourable Mention and came in 3^rd place in the 39^th Annual Elementary School mathematics competition. The Foundation also recognized Emily Schwartzman for her success in placing 2^nd , Sonia Toy for placing 4^th and Rebecca McPherson, Yasmine Dabbous and Amanda Mastrogiacomo for placing 5^th in this annual math competition. Congratulations girls!