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At the end of the day, they may be just benches, but to some people, they mean a little more than that.

So when students from Prince Charles Public School in Verona came to Atkinson Home Hardware in Hartington for paint and supplies to fix them as part of Brian Grigg’s 6/7 shop class, they expected to pay with funds set aside from Parents School Council fundraisers.

But Wendy Rose wouldn’t hear of it.

You see, Rose was a student at Prince Charles and remembers those benches well.

Not only did she arrange for a donation, she went to the trouble of colour-matching the paint so it would be the actual Prince Charles colours.

“They (the benches) were sky blue but we thought it might be a good idea to have have them in the school colours (green and yellow),” she said. “I got the colours from the “P” in Prince Charles.

“I remember them well, they were used for all sorts of things — choir, school photos, even as boards for floor hockey.”

“They had become a backdrop but now they’re a centrepiece,” said Principal Peter Mouncey.

He said real-life projects like this give students an education they can’t get from more theoretical teaching.

“The emphasis is on problem-solving — from a practical standpoint,” Mouncey said. “They have to figure out what tools they need, how to do a lot of measuring and such.

“They thought it was going to be simple once they started looking at it, some of the boards were in bad shape and we had to remove two cups of screws.”

That aspect wasn’t lost on the students.

“We were going to try to use the same tops and sides but we couldn’t for all of them,” said Jason Rose. “Our top was too small so we had to cut down one end and move the legs.”

“And I didn’t expect all the sanding we had to do,” said Sydney Leonard. “We had to sand for painted and the corners had to be rounded off so people wouldn’t injure themselves if they bumped into them.”

“The painting was fun but I didn’t know about all the sizes of sandpaper,” said Maddy Bruschette, whose dad Norm runs MB Carpentry and helped out, mostly in the background. “He did the big cuts and double checked measuring.

“I enjoyed the project, especially learning how to use a drill.”

Rose said the students did most of the work.

“Mr. Grigg comes over and shows you how to do it,” he said. “So then you can do it.

“Now they won’t have to be rebuilt a hundred times.”

So, what’s next for the Prince Charles shop class?

Actually Rose has a suggestion.

“When I was going here, there was a white picket fence out front,” she said. “I have a few pallets of picket fences in my yard.”

Published in SOUTH FRONTENAC
Wednesday, 11 December 2019 12:40

Former student returns to PCPS for concert

Perhaps you can go home after all.

When Astrid Tanton was in Grade 5 at Prince Charles Public School in Verona, she covered Taylor Swift’s Mean in a school talent show.

Last Friday, she was back in the same gym, and when the audience asked for her to do a Taylor Swift song for her encore, she happily obliged.

“It’s fun,” she said. “You can go home.”

Now 17, Tanton is a recent graduate (Ontario Scholar at 16) of Rosedale Heights School of the Arts in Toronto. She’s been busily building a musical career in Toronto and came back to the area last week to do shows at Sydenham High School and Prince Charles. She’ll be heading to Ryerson for Arts and Contemporary Studies next year.

“Music is universally inspiring,” she said. “I’ve been singing since I was three years old.

“In high school, I was learning what I want to do — share music.”

She describes her music as a blend of mainstream pop and jazz, with R & B influences.

“I’ve been getting more gigs and I love playing larger stages,” she said. “I want to keep performing.

“Everyone says I light up when I perform.”

That she does. And the kids at PCPS loved it.

For this gig, she recruited a couple of friends, Jay Yoo on guitar and Dennis Lee on keyboards.

“I think it’s important to have live musicians when you perform, especially when it’s for kids,” she said. “It gets them more involved.”

And while the school does have a modest fund to pay for visiting musicians and such, Tanton not only declined a fee, she even made a donation to the school’s arts and music program.

Tanton is very active on Instagram with 1,500+ followers.

You can listen to some of her music at https://linktr.ee/astridtanton

Published in SOUTH FRONTENAC

“It’s been steady,” Parents Council chair and 14th annual holiday market organizer Ali Williams said Saturday morning as Prince Charles Public School was full of holiday shoppers, vendors and people making merry. “It’ll probably pick up once the (Sydenham) Santa Claus Parade is over.”

It did pick up indeed.

For the past seven years, the school and the Frontenac Farmers Market have combined to put on the annual sale.

For the school, it represents a major fundraiser.

“We’ve raised money for sports equipment, bike desks for kids who have high energy so they can bike while doing their school work, school trips, culinary class, wood working and musical gear,” Williams said. “It all comes back to the school.”

Williams said she has a lot of help putting this on but Tab Morton said it’s mostly Williams.

“Ali is the vast majority of this,” Morton said. “We play a very small support role.

“She’s the main driver.”

“She’s lying,” said Williams.

Well, there were a lot of teachers, parents and such that seemed to be busy. Heck, they even had two Santa Claus’s even though both of them tried to convince the reporter they were actually the same person in two different places at once.

The annual event is usually the first full weekend in December, but they decided to try it a weekend earlier this year to avoid conflicts with other events.

“But it seems no matter when we have it, there’s something else going on,” Williams said. “But it is nice having the partnership with the Frontenac Farmers Market.”

David Bates, the self-admitted “Poobah” of the market at the moment, agreed.

“There’s parking way up the streets,” he said. “We’re hearing from some of our cornerstone vendors that we’re setting records.”

He said the holiday market bodes well for the future of the Frontenac Farmers Market and they may be looking at moving to McMullen Park for next season.

Published in SOUTH FRONTENAC

Last week was a busy one at Prince Charles Public School in Verona beginning with a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) night, a concert by the Blue Skies Community Fiddle Orchestra, a play from the 1,000 Islands Playhouse Young Company and then on Thursday afternoon, the school’s Grandparents & Games gathering.

“There’s a common misconception that there are two kinds of people — math people and non-math people,” said Principal Peter Mouncey. “That’s not true.

“Everybody can do it (and) math is fun.”

To that end, Prince Charles invited grandparents (and other family members) to have a chance to play new and familiar games that promote arithmetic and problem solving skills for Primary/Junior age students (JK-Grade 4).

“In conjunction with the Faculty of Education at Queen’s University, the staff at Prince Charles are participating in a two-year project to help families find fun and effective ways that engage children with mathematics,” Mouncey said. “We will provide all the games, some light snacks and a math card game for each student to take home.”

And by all accounts, it was mission accomplished.

As Grade 6-7 class members Jorja Steele, Maddy Parks, Sydney Leonard and Isaac Badour wandered around the games tables offering cookies and snacks they’d baked as part of their classes, grandparents like Ina Emmons enjoyed the company of their grandchildren and their friends.

“He’s (grandson Tyson Revelle) always at my place but he made a point of wanting to do this this year,” she said. “He said ‘you come, you come.’”

Grandfather Peter Fitzsimmons was part of a larger group playing the card game Uno.

“Nobody knows the rules,” he joked. “They’re (the kids) picking on us.”

SK-Grade 1 teacher Lee Casement said games are a good way to teach concepts like probability, spatial sense and counting.

“This was so successful last year, we just had to do it again,” he said. “I remember being a student here in the ’80s and we’d have a grandparents tea.

“It’s nice bringing this concept back.”

Published in SOUTH FRONTENAC

It was hard to tell who was having more fun last Wednesday at GREC — the organizers of the music workshops going on, or the students participating in them.

“Teaching is an art form,” said vice-principal Kristin Stevens, the main coordinator of the artistic events. “Art finds its way into everything (and) fun is always our focus.”

This particular event, made possible by Al Rankin, Blue Skies and Live Wire Music, the Parents Council and an Arts grant from the Limestone District School Board, featured about 150 Grade 4-8 students from GREC, Land O’Lakes Public School, Prince Charles Public School and Clarendon Central Public School. The students spent the day rotating through music and instrument-making workshops including flute making, indigenous drumming and song, drum making and acoustic instruments.

“The students are making art,” Stevens said. “They’re learning indigenous drumming and the value of arts endeavours.”

Judy Montgomery and Pam Giroux led the indigenous drumming/singing workshop.

“We’re having loads of fun working with the students,” Montgomery said. “We’re teaching them why we have music — why people sing.

“We give thanks to Mother Earth and our connection to the Earth.

“It encompasses the language and gives a sense of peace and well-being.”

And to get a sense of what’s involved in making music, students got a chance to make their own instruments.

Lily Legacy, who’s been known to create symphonies with nothing more than plastic buckets and enthusiasm, led a drum-making workshop where students made their own “indigenous inspired” hand drums out of tubes used for pouring concrete footings and packing tape.

“They’re super cheap,” Legacy said. “And they’re making drumsticks from dowels and hockey tape.

“It’s a good day.”

Over in the wood shop, students were drilling holes in dowels and creating unique flutes.

“When I’m not teaching, I’m making music or doing carpentry,” said teacher Julia Schall. “These kids are super engaged.”

Finally, students got to spend some time with Teilhard Frost, a fiddler by trade but also a music historian and on this day, he was passing along his knowledge of the not-so-common aspects of acoustic instruments, showing how just about anything can be used to make music.

“I picked some grass in the front yard of the school to show kids how to make notes blowing through it,” he said. “You don’t need anything other than what’s always been around to make music.

“You can be a drumset — without a drumset.”

Frost said he showed the students the relationship between a conch shell and a trumpet.

“You want people to know you’re there,” he said. “And a jug is the basis for hip-hop and beatbox.

He said this is the basis for his acoustic music project — “No Batteries required.”

Published in CENTRAL FRONTENAC

The Grade 5-8 students from Granite Ridge Education Centre visited Prince Charles Public School in Verona Tuesday where Teilhard Frost performed a concert in the morning.

Frost also did a body percussion workshop in the afternoon for the PCPS Grade K-4 students.

During the day, the Grade 5-8 students from both schools rotated through music workshops including The History of Instruments, Bucket Drumming and Vocal Harmonies.

PCPS Grade 5-8 students will be visiting GREC in a few weeks for more workshops including using their wood shops.

Published in SOUTH FRONTENAC

Pink Shirt Day is quickly becoming country rocker Abby Stewart’s personal cause in the Frontenacs as she showed up at Prince Charles Public School in Verona last week to help the school spread the word. Last year, she did a similar gig at GREC in Sharbot Lake.

Pink Shirt Day seeks to raise awareness about cyberbullying and hopefully end the practise.

“I’ve been bullied and I really support the Boys and Girls Clubs for all they do,” Stewart said before taking the stage at Prince Charles. “Bullying is something that has to end — 100 per cent!

“And, I really like the slogan this year, ‘Be Kinder,’ it’s beautiful.”

Stewart said she received good feedback on her Sharbot Lake show last year and that’s part of the reason she wanted to do another one this year.

“Not face-to-face feedback but on social media,” she said. “Some people confided in me and told me my songs have helped them.

“That felt good.”

Songs like No More Falling Down and Stewart’s own You Don’t Know That, which the Boys and Girls Clubs have adopted as their anti-bullying theme song.

“It’s an anthem for anyone who’s been bullied,” she said. “I wrote it with a guy in B.C. via Skype.

Surprisingly, a number of kids in the audience were singing along with her on that one.

As a Grade 11 student at Holy Cross in Kingston, Stewart said school work has “kinda taken time from music” lately but she’s managed to keep up with songwriting.

“I find songwriting a release,” she said. “You know, sometimes coming up with a line or a little riff on the guitar can make a difference.”

But her mood shifts and her voice gains excitement when she talks about performing.

“I like being on stage,” she said. “Especially if it’s an emotional song and you look at people in the eyes.

“You know they’ll remember.”

Stewart plans to get back on stage in May with a show at the Embassy in Kingston.

In the meantime, you can find her on YouTube with songs like her latest — What If They’re Wrong.

Published in SOUTH FRONTENAC

Get ready to rock, Prince Charles.

That’s as in School of Rock at Prince Charles Public School in Verona.

SK-1 teacher Lee Casement has secured a $2,360 grant from the Limestone Learning Foundation and he’s using it to get gear. Now all he needs is some students to rock ’n’ roll.

“I’m teaching SK-1 so I haven’t got to meet many of the junior and intermediate students yet,” he said. “I’m hoping they’ll take a leadership role.”

Casement, a bass player by trade, takes his inspiration from the Jack Black movie, School of Rock where Black takes on a teaching assignment and ends up forming his students into a rock band.

“There’s actually a method to the madness of teaching kids rock music,” he said. “First of all, this is not a music class per se,” he said. “It’s an extracurricular activity featuring music and we’re not teaching music, we’re teaching songs. And because it’s rock, you can get dirty loud, and that can cover up a lot of mistakes which means the kids can learn quickly and sound decent, which goes a long way towards self-confidence.”

To that end, He plans to feature a repertoire of The Clash, The Ramones, and Pink Floyd.

And Casement knows what he’s talking about. This will be his third School of Rock having done similar programs at Tamworth Elementary and Perth Road Public School.

“What have I learned at those two previous attempts?” he said. “Well, I’ve learned how to write a grant application.”

“But I’ve also learned things like getting smaller keyboards and shortscale guitars. And things like tuning a ukulele to open D so that the less advanced kids can strum along and have some fun.”

He’s also learned to recruit help whenever it presents itself.

“At Perth Road, custodian Don Pollard is a drummer,” he said. “He jumped in a loved it.

“Here, french teacher Kevin Bailey told me ‘I play a little keyboard,’ so . . .” In the past, he’s done Neil Young, Nirvana and even Taylor Swift (“a little rockier version but sometimes you have to meet the kids half-way”) with the students.

“This time, we’ll have to see how it goes,” he said. “I like the idea of gender swapping the vocals on covers.

“We’ll probably do an assembly in March and maybe a concert.”

At Perth Road, he had enough students for four bands, including one allgirl rock band that kept their band, She Rock, going after they left the school.

But even if it’s only a power trio at Prince Charles, it’s worth his time.

“I’ve always wanted something that will bring kids together as a team, with a goal in mind,” he said.

Published in SOUTH FRONTENAC
Wednesday, 13 December 2017 12:12

Busy Christmas market in Verona

Prince Charles Public School in Verona was a busy place Saturday as the Frontenac Farmers Market combined with the School Advisory Council for a fundraiser that packed the place.

There were 38 vendors filling the hallways and library and 22 of the usual suspects from the summer market arranged in the gym.

There was even a breakfast with Santa and a mom-to-mom sale, where the community donated clothes with proceeds going back to the school and any leftovers going to the church.

“That did pretty good,” said SAC chair Alison Williams. “It’s a good fundraiser for the school and we also raised funds from table sales to vendors.”

“It was a huge group effort and the school benefits so we’ll definitely be doing it again,” said SAC treasurer Tina McHale.

Laura Simmons, who’s taking over the helm of the Frontenac Farmers Market from Debbie Harris for 2018 said “we’ve had a good turnout so far and we still have an hour to go.

“This is our last sale of 2017.”

Simmons said the first 2018 date of the market is “not certain yet but I expect it will be in mid- to late-May and continue through the end of October.

“We have a couple of new vendors coming on in 2018 and they’ll add some variety.”

Published in SOUTH FRONTENAC
Wednesday, 28 June 2017 11:07

PCPS nets two O’Connor awards.

The Limestone District School Board gives out six Barry C. O’Connor awards for support staff on a yearly basis for the entire school district.

This year, two of the six awards went to Prince Charles Public School. Head Custodian Harold Smith was honoured with the Custodial and Maintenance award and School Advisory Council Chair Nicki Gowdy was honoured with the Volunteer award.

“I can’t ever remember this (two awards to the same school) this happening across the the system,” said Principal Peter Mouncey.

“We are tiny and we’re quiet but we do some great things here,” said Gowdy.

“And humble,” said Smith. “I got a lot more praise than I anticipated.

Ironically, Gowdy was one of the ones who nominated Smith.

His citation, which has both Mouncey’s and Gowdy’s name at the bottom, reads:

“Every day, Harold shows the kind of initiative that makes the school run smoothly at all levels. For Harold, his job is always about the people. Whether it is his daily tasks or small gestures of support, he takes care of our students and staff members in a personal way.”

Smith came to Prince Charles eight years ago when the head custodian position came open “and has thought of Prince Charles as ‘his school’ ever since.

Gowdy has been a parent volunteer at Prince Charles for 13 years.

Her citation’s assertion that she is “seldom one to take ‘no’ for an answer” is something local journalists can attest to.

“During her frequent visits to the school, she greets students by name and engages in personal conversations,” her citation said. “She has a disarming manner that brings a smile to everyone’s face and she is highly respected by the staff and parents.

“They appreciated her honesty and straightforward approach and they often say that nobody works harder than Nicki Gowdy does.”

Published in SOUTH FRONTENAC
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With the participation of the Government of Canada