Discovering New Areas of Interest
Clayburn Middle School strives to create engaging and new opportunities for students. One way we achieve this is by offering Special Interest Days. Twice yearly, Clayburn staff share an area of passion with students by creating hands-on, interactive, and meaningful learning activities in late winter and mid-spring. Staff are encouraged to emphasize the importance of finding joy and passion in learning that can inspire further desire for experiencing success in learning and life.
On Special Interest days, staff offer a variety of sessions ranging from stop motion, escape room activities, directed drawing, crochet, board game exploration, outdoor games, golf, beading to Salish weaving. Students choose an area of interest that they are curious about and would like to explore. As the sessions are open to all students, cross-grade interactions commonly occur, promoting new friendships and positive interactions between students of differing grades. Special Interest Day celebrates learning informally through various passion-based activities that provide opportunities for collaboration, building peer relationships, and connections between the staff and students. A grade 8 student, Rylan, shared he found the escape room activity he participated in was “really fun and challenging with very detailed codes. But [they] were able to work together and break free at the last second”. And Cameron, a grade 7 student, shared he once chose Dungeon and Dragons as his Special Interest Day activity because he was “curious about it and had seen people participating in a club during lunchtimes”. He enjoyed it, stating, “It was pretty fun because the students helping lead it were cool, and [he] got to make a new character”. Students are always excited about signing up for and experiencing their Special Interest Day activity. There is always a lot of anticipation leading up to these days and it has become a tradition at Clayburn that students look forward to experiencing!
ELIZABETH SMOES, VICE PRINCIPAL
PAUL LUONGO, VICE PRINCIPAL
Clayburn Middle School
